Today, They Said

The past

It’s riddled with mistakes. With miracles, too. With moments that took our breath away and moments that made us breathe out a long and fragile sigh of relief.

The past is where humanity was born and humanity, at times, was lost. It’s where history was made and lives were destroyed. Where colosseums were built and forests were torn down. Where people made good discoveries and we discovered that not all people are good.

The past, man. It was a blast. But it can’t touch us now.

The future

What a concept! Will we have one? Do we want one? Of course we do - but only if it’s good.

Only if all that we love is waiting for us there: our friends, our oceans, our potential. We want inclusivity and kindness to wave us along the horizon, welcoming us home. What if it’s not there, though? Do we still head into the sunset even if it’s burned out and dark? If beyond it lies discrimination, subordination, a broken, battered and saddened nation? Kids can be bullies. Adults, meaner. It’s a man-eat-man world and if we continue on this way, will there even be man left to stand in the lands of the future?

Well, I guess we can’t know that just yet.

The present

Today really is all we have, isn’t it? Not just in the romanticised sense of embracing the moment, but also: quite literally.

All we have is now. Yesterday is a retired today, tomorrow is a queued one. Every moment we are alive, we call it “today.”

The past is just a series of them that are written in stone, chapters read and moved on from. The future is a series of them that aren’t written at all, they can’t be, not until we’ve written the chapter of today.

But that’s what we’re doing, right? Writing? Scribbling down the story of us, our main character selves, and the plot of a lifetime? We might not all realise it, but we’re all doing it. Writing for our life.

And the thing about life - about stories - is that they come with a setting, with characters, with an issue to resolve. This world is riddled with all of those. With places to heal, with characters to help, with issues that we have every power to find the solution for.

But we don’t and we know exactly why: because we don’t think we can.

Who are we to change the world? It’s not just our world, it’s everybody’s, shouldn’t we have a group chat to consult one another about these things? That’s what we tell ourselves. But ingrained between those lines are the words:

What if I can’t? What if I’m no good? What if I’m not capable of making a difference? What if I make it all so, so much worse?

Thing is: we won’t.

No, no, hear me out and trust me: we won’t.

We literally cannot mess up, because all it takes to make the Good Life™, Greater, is to make our own life good. To be the best us we can possibly be. And have a great time doing it.

Our reality is simply our life story, projected onto this Earthly stage. Adjacent to it are 8 billion others and occasionally, characters stride off their own and onto ours. We’re not responsible for stage management worldwide. Just our own. Our only job is to make it homely, to put on a good show for our cosmic audience, and to welcome those that pass by. Those that stay. Those that don’t. We can’t change the world in one sitting, but we can sit down each morning, stare up at the moon as she fades into daylight, and wonder how we’re going to make today a great one.

Just for us. For our gerbil. For the checkout lady who’s necklace we’re going to compliment later on at 2.

That’s the other thing about this life - it’s just a collection of today’s.

Martin Luther King Jr created a portrait of a future free from separation and exclusivity today, on his today, a today that we know as August 28th, 1963. Rockets are launched in single today’s. “I love you’s” are said on specific today’s, and every day thereafter. Today, somebody is bungee-jumping and learning about relativity and pushing a kid on the swing. People are born today and will die today and today (whichever one that might be) is the greatest day of your life - that’s fact.

Today is all we have.

And today is when we change the whole entire world - by changing our own. By beautifying it, embellishing it, stringing up fairylights around it so that it glows. That’s how fairylights work, right? A sequence of bulbs, when combined, radiating like a homebound constellation. Think of each bulb as a “today.” The brighter each one is, the brighter life will shine as a whole. If we all did that, life would be blinding.

So today, me and you, we’re going to make this world glisten.

And yeah. You're damn right. The world can - and will - be brightened in a single day. Not overnight, not in 24 hours, but in a day, it sure as Heaven can be. Because that one day is: today.

Today you can make a change, a tiny one, one that perhaps nobody else will notice, even if it’s only impacting you and bettering your life, that’s all you need. And then tomorrow comes and it’ll be today again, and then another change can be made. We can all do good things, kind things, inclusive things - and we can only do them now.

They add up, you know? I’m accumulating my today’s too.

I’m drinking more water. Donating more books. Talking to more strangers in coffee shops about camping pods filled with spiders and building the local Ikea. I’m believing in myself. I’m holding my mom’s hand in the park. I’m eating 32 nuggets with my dad. I’m telling my soulmate, every day, that he’s my soulmate - because we’re only alive today, and I want him to know, whilst he’s alive, how much I love him, until forever and every today in between.

I wanted to do bigger things at first.

I volunteered at a greyhound sanctuary and felt disheartened knowing I could never help them all. Ben, my boyfriend, bought a man sleeping out in the cold a smoothie, and my heart broke when I realised that we could never help them all. And together, me and Ben, we sobbed mountainside watching a bird with a broken wing scramble terrified and injured into the bushes, knowing that we couldn't help at all.

But then I realised that, in smaller ways, we were helping.

One greyhound walked meant four pawprints pressed into this Earth, today. One smoothie bought meant one man with a slightly fuller stomach, today. One bird in pain meant that today, on that day, we smiled wider at all the birds in the sky. We fed a Seagull. Named it Jerry. He accompanied us in stages as we climbed Snowdon. He reminded us to appreciate every breath blown into this world by life itself, in whatever form it came.

Because today, we’re alive. Today we’re doing little acts of kindness. Today we’re smiling at strangers in the street. Today we’re planting sunflowers, we’re hosting Zoom quizzes, we’re painting murals onto city walls.

Today, we’re creating things and loving things and becoming things.

Today is every thing.

“Today,” they said. The voice of the people we admire, the people who inspire, the people that have made big impacts on this planet, knowing that their large influences are really just an amalgamation of tiny ones, on single today’s, threaded together.

“Today is when we change the world.”

Today is all we have.

And today is all we need.