Annie Lied to Me – I Don’t Love Tomorrow

“The sun’ll come out tomorrow …” 

Bet you’re already singing. Catchy, isn’t it?

The 1982 movie of Annie was just what we needed, right? The way she was getting through her bad days was to think of tomorrow and how life would be better then.

“When stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely,” tomorrow will be better.

I bought into the whole “Annie” philosophy back in the 80s. I even had the Annie lunch box. Tomorrow. That’s where my best days would be. That’s where my dreams would come true.

I even imagined that someday, a Daddy Warbucks would bring me a life of riches beyond my imagination.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow; you’re only a day away.”

Isn’t that a great way to get through life?

I thought so too. I felt that by believing that tomorrow was worth living for, I was moving forward in my life and accomplishing things. 

But life has a way of changing. Plans we make fall apart. Things we thought we’d achieve don’t happen on the timeline we imagined. 

After years of reaching for “tomorrow,” I wasn’t feeling any happier. I was wondering when tomorrow would get here.

Then I heard a speaker at a women’s conference say, “What if these are your best days?” 

What?!!

These are my best days? 

The woman speaking was what I considered to be an older woman. Gray hair. Grown kids. Close to retirement.

Wasn’t she supposed to tell us to keep striving in life and keep hanging on til tomorrow? That all our dreams would come true, and it would all be worth it tomorrow?

But here she was, standing in front of a lot of women struggling to hang on and telling us this could be as good as it gets.

At first, I was shaken up and felt even more depressed. But as I considered it, this approach started to make sense because I couldn’t get it out of my mind. 

Was it possible that I’d look back on my life and say these were my best days? 

Then what was I waiting for?

What did I want tomorrow to bring?

WHEN would I be happy? 

Why tomorrow?

This was a paradigm shift for me. 

What would change if I chose to see today as my “best” day? 

Well, a lot would change.

I stopped waiting for tomorrow to “clear away the cobwebs and the sorrows.” 

I started using today as the day that “the sun’ll come out.”

No Daddy Warbucks was going to pluck me out of my situation and hand me a happy life. A happy life was going to be made by my own choices, and those choices would be made today. 

I started being grateful for the gift of today. Truthfully, we don’t know if we will have a tomorrow. It wasn’t all about living for tomorrow. Life could also be about enjoying today. Rainy day or not. 

With a change in focus, I noticed over time that I was becoming more emotionally resilient. I wasn’t waiting to feel better tomorrow. I was figuring out how to feel better today. 

I still had goals and plans for the future. But they weren’t something to make me happy tomorrow; my goals were to keep me on the right path today. A course of action and growth.

“So you gotta hang on til tomorrow.”

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I’m pretty sure it will be a lot like today. Some clouds, some sun, a whole lot of enjoying it while it lasts.

All while singing, “Today, Today, I love you, Today! You’re always right here and now.”

What do you think? 

Does hangin’ on til tomorrow work for you? Are you focused on today? Or something in between?