“What day is it?”, asked Winnie the Pooh

“It’s today”, squeaked Piglet

“My favourite day”, said Pooh.

In 2017, I wrote a blog which quoted A.A. Milne writing about Winnie the Pooh who loved to eat honey as often as he could.  The blog had little or nothing to do with honey but a lot to do with futile search for deeper meaning in certain situations when there is no such profound thought or philosophy to be had.

However, the above brief conversation between Winnie the Pooh and his friend Piglet does have a deeper meaning, for me at least, than a lot of pretentious and often vacuous utterances by people whom we hold in high esteem.

Winnie the Pooh is often oblivious to the world around him; he lives each day as it comes; has no plans for the future; assumes everyone is good and friendly; and is happy to share his possessions with anyone, assuming that others would reciprocate with their own possessions, especially when he runs out of honey.

I find it quite surprising and therefore amusing that Winnie would be interested in what day of the week it is since he has no comprehension of days or time in general.  Be it as it may, on this occasion, Winnie felt he needed to know what day of the week it was.

For his part, Piglet’s intellect is no better than that of Winnie the Pooh and being able to provide accurate answers to such questions as ‘What day of the week is it?’ is beyond his cannon of knowledge.  So, out of personal pride, desire to stop this line of questioning, or just random thinking, he replies by declaring that ‘today’ is the answer to Winnie’s question.  Satisfied with the answer, Winnie declares ‘today’ to be his favourite day.

What a great attitude to have! To consider each and every day ‘today’ to be your favourite day is a great optimistic mantra we can all adopt.  Looking back to yesterday, you can regret, apologise for, or celebrate what had taken place but, it has gone now and there is nothing you can do about that.  Looking forward to tomorrow you can plan for it and hope things go according to your plan; which they may or may not do so.  We all learnt, individuals and groups, what an un-expected event such as the current pandemic can do to our lives.

So, what about today?  Well, it is here and now and you have an opportunity to shape ‘today’ with a higher degree of certainty than tomorrow.  You can choose to fritter the day away and stay in bed, if that’s what you want.  You can start a new project.  You can go around and apologise for a wrong you might have committed yesterday and make amends, or reconnect with someone you care deeply about; tell them you love them or admire them.   You can adjust yesterday’s plans to take into account what you have learnt from yesterday.

The possibilities are endless.

American Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is accredited with writing what is commonly known as the ‘Serenity Prayer’ which was adopted by Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) around 1948 as part of their recovery programme.  The prayer goes like this:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference”

So, silly old Winnie the Pooh is wiser than we think; we should all learn from his optimistic attitude.

 

Happy Today to you all.