“You make decisions today as if today is isolated from tomorrow.”

A thought by Andy Stanley (2009-03-31) in his book The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (p. 41). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Over this weekend Irene came to visit us here on Long Island. We knew she was coming. All week we had followed her on TV. I became close friends with the people on The Weather Channel and NBC Channel 4 New York City.

Now we had some decisions to make on Saturday that affected us on Sunday when Irene was on the Island. Sunday was not the time to go to the grocery store because they were all boarded up and closed. We were almost too late on Saturday for some things and we never did find extra flashlights.

I find this fact also true in my task of trying to lose weight. I may really want those vanilla cream filled donuts from Dunkin Donuts and I may convince myself that eating them won’t affect me but when I get on the scale the next morning I know the truth. What I eat today will affect my weight tomorrow.

So much of life is like that. What I decide to do today will affect me tomorrow. What I buy today will affect what I can buy tomorrow. What I save today will affect my quality of life tomorrow. What I decide to do on my weekends can affect my week.

But we live in a time of critical shifts in our values and attitudes. George Barna is his book Futurecast says that we used to embrace delayed gratification and now we embrace instant gratification. That value can bring great fun and enjoyment in the moment but great consequences in the future. The problems we are having in our economy right now shows the dangers of living with this value in mind.

Somehow we need to think as adults. As kids we lived with the comfort that dad and mom were there to take care of our childish messes but as adults we must now realize that dad and mom are no longer responsible to take care of us. We now must be responsible for our choices today and how they affect our life tomorrow. This is such an important lesson to be learned.

Well I’m glad Irene has moved on. I’m also glad that I made some decision on Saturday that helped in my living through Hurricane Irene’s visit to Long Island on Sunday. There were some good lessons to be learned.

What about you?

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