With today being Inauguration Day, I thought it would be appropriate to write about new days. Today is a new day, historically, for our nation with President Biden becoming the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris becoming the first woman, African-American, and Asian-American citizen to become the Vice President. That second fact has obvious significance because of the barriers being broken simultaneously by one individual and because of the importance the American people placed on that aspect of the ticket she belonged to during the election. It is an example for others that this is a new day that affords new opportunities and new ways to look at ourselves and each other. For me and my co-contributors, it is especially germane because we each have immensely talented, intelligent, caring daughters who have sought ways to serve their families, their communities and their nations. We are all very proud of them, their successes and the example they set for others.

While today is a historically significant new day, it is also simply a new day distinct from yesterday or tomorrow. Each new day brings us a clean slate for our thoughts, words, and deeds. It’s a chance to right wrongs, finish things we started, and create new things. In one way, it’s the only day that matters. Yesterday, and all preceding days, are history and tomorrow is the future. Neither of those are tangible and in neither case can we effect the events that happened or will happen. Everything we did yesterday, good, bad and indifferent, have little meaning or impact if we don’t treat today as a new day. Anything we plan to do tomorrow has no meaning if we don’t act today. That doesn’t mean the past and the future don’t matter. What it means is that today matters the most and how we choose to approach today has significance. We can choose to rest on our laurels and coast through today. We can choose to rest today so we can have the energy to take on our big challenge tomorrow. When we take those approaches, we rely on a concept of credit for past deeds or future intentions that is negatively impacted by our inaction and failure to commit ourselves to being our best.

Today is a new day in every respect. Recommit yourself each new day to upholding the person you are, the person your family needs, the person your community needs, the person your country needs…don’t shift into cruise control today. We need each other at our best whatever that looks like for each of us. It matters whether we see it or not.