Today is judgment day
Every day is judgment day. Not the Hell-fire and brimstone Judgment Day of the religious scriptures but a day of consequences of past thoughts, actions, and inactions – a day of accountability to yourself and your family. Each day is also a day of fresh choices.
There is no such thing as a thought or action that is independent and has no consequences. The consequences may not be immediate or readily evident but they are inevitable. Even thoughtlessness and inaction have consequences.
The seemingly most innocuous thought or action can reverberate a thousand-fold. Go out into the street smiling genuinely and a hundred people will smile back at you. You will not even notice the habitual scowlers who in their turn will have their scowls returned to them many times over.
Respond to bad service with anger and indignation and nobody will be the better for it. Counter with affability and you will have seized the initiative and broken one chain of action and reaction. You will leave the shop undiminished, albeit never to return.
Think poorly of yourself[1] and how much harder is it to realise your potential[2] and your dreams? Think poorly of others[3] and how quickly do you lose their esteem and support?
Positive and creative thoughts and actions no matter how small beget manifold positive and creative thoughts and actions. So it is with the negative and destructive.
Who and where you are today is a result of all the past choices you have made. Circumstances and choices made by others affect you, but how and the extent to which they affect you is entirely in your hands. Don’t blame others. Don't blame misfortune. Take personal responsibility[4].
If all is written, and there is no such thing as free will and personal choice, we may as well shut down now. If there is no choice, there can also be no accountability to yourself or to others.
We are creatures of habit. We keep following the patterns we have always followed, even the ones we dislike, unless we make a significant and persistent effort of will to lift us out of the ruts we are in. Each of us has thousands of grooves and patterns, including patterns of thought. At each moment we have the choice to repeat a pattern and deepen a groove, or to lift ourselves out of the groove into a new and better pattern.
Lift yourself out of the little grooves and gradually you will get to a point where you can lift yourself and your family out of the big ruts and into a fresh and higher orbit of life.
Every moment is an opportunity to change for the better. Every moment is a choice for better or for worse, not only for you but also for your descendants[5]. Once the moment is passed it is passed forever. Next time that groove will be a little deeper and a little harder to get out of.