Everyday Canvas

One Day at a Time or Not

Prompt: Do you think "take it one day at a time" is good advice? Why or Why not?

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As advice, the usability of “take it one day at a time” depends on the circumstances. It is true that, if I am always worried about the future, I’ll never live happily and enjoy the present. Taking one day at a time helps to focus my attention on the situation or the problem at hand, and if there is a problem with immense proportions, to handle one aspect or one detail of it at each step may assist me in tying up the entire loose ends at the finish line.

There is also the possibility of a drastic change in everything and every situation around myself in the future. This may even happen in the blink of an eye, and no can predict anything extreme that may occur at any time. Then all the fretting, planning, and worrying will be for nothing.

Still, I cannot just ignore the future or what I’ll need to do in the future. I can’t spend all my money on a Maserati today, if I may not even have bus fare, ten years down the line; therefore, instead of fretting about what’s to come, I can make some preliminary plans for it, so I’ll be ready to take on the problem and hopefully sail through its complications with success.

Applied to writing, if the writer has some kind of an outline, a premise, or at least an idea, when he sits down to write, his writing will flow more smoothly. To be specific, that is why NaNo Prep helps so many of us each year, although this year the daredevil idea that is in my head can’t fit the prep work.

Having praised the getting ready and outlining practice, I have to add that the best writing practice I like happens when I just sit down to write without lifting the pen and let the mind and the heart guide me.

For writing or otherwise, probably the easiest course of action is to make a few rough plans without worrying over them and then taking one day at a time alongside those plans while re-adjusting them when necessary.