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It's been popular for self-help and spiritually oriented books for years to borrow a concept from Asian, particularly Buddhist, thinking. We’re supposed to live in the present, don’t think about what’s past because we can’t do anything about it and, likewise, don’t worry about the future because we can’t possibly know for certain what the future holds. It’s supposed to give us a calmer life.

That is a good attitude to have, at least most of the time. There are, however, exceptions. No, we can’t go back and fix something we goofed up in the past. We can’t take back words we said that hurt someone, we can’t reach out to help someone we neglected until it was too late. We can’t decide to study harder in school so we’d get better jobs when we’ve already graduated long before.

That does not mean, however, that realization of something we did wrong to hurt someone should mean we, at the very least, can’t apologize even though we can’t fix what we did. That also doesn’t mean the other person is under any obligation to change their attitude about us just because we belatedly realized we were wrong. We don’t forgive someone for something they did in order to relieve them of responsibility either. We forgive someone because we don’t want to carry bitterness around in our hearts.

When it comes to contemplating the future we absolutely should not dwell on something we don’t want to do and anticipate the worst. Imagining trouble ahead means we experience bad things multiple times instead of just once. Besides, the bad thing may not happen at all. Getting an expected bad thing over with is almost always worthwhile.

The opposite, imagining the good things we anticipate happening, is a good thing unless we neglect what we need to do in favor of daydreaming. Having an optimistic attitude is worth nurturing.

Years ago, Glen Yarborough sang a song that occasionally goes through my mind. The refrain was, “That’s okay, Rose would say, don’t you worry none, we’ll have good times by and by, next fall when the works all done.”

It’s really not a happy song, the singer reminisces about their life together. He remembers all the hard times, the struggles they had, the tragedies, and then the death of his beloved Rose. Still, it’s a good way to approach life. We can’t prevent problems, we can’t keep troubles from our door but, that doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to, can’t anticipate, good times to come.

Anticipating good things to come smooths the miles of unimproved road we occasionally must travel. When we live through times of “not yet” we can be grumpy about how long we have to wait or we can be glad that everyday brings it closer.

We might not ever get to “next fall when the works all done” but we can certainly have a cheerier attitude during the “not yet” days and make life a little better along the way.