When will be a better time?
Matt Pearl
During my last haircut, my manliness operator/stylist made mention to me that something I have long anticipated is coming to pass.
“You’re getting quite a bit of gray in the front,” she said. “Your mom’s hair turned really quickly,” she added.
I am not going to use this editorial forum to bemoan the arrival of gray hairs to my head: but we all know there are moments that carry with them thoughts about age, life and the progress we are making as people while the years pass.
I came to King City in the summer of 2006 as the new English teacher and an assistant basketball coach. The first of those duties I still hold eight and a half years later.
I was 28 years old, had made a bit of a life change in leaving the South Nodaway R-IV School District to join the King City R-I crew. It was the right choice for my life, but I remember questioning at the time whether leaving my life in Maryville was the right choice.
My point is not to bore you with details of my somewhat typical northwest Missouri life, but to demonstrate a valuable truth I hold as I, like you, enter another new year: We often cannot see in the moment whether we have made a good decision; we must exercise patience in evaluating our choices.
But patience is not a virtue that comes very naturally to me. That’s the precise reason I choose to put the preceding statement into print: to hold myself to it.
My age is not advanced. I know that 36 is still pretty young, and I’m not ashamed that I still have a lot more brown hair than gray. But I have also begun to appreciate the lessons in patience and understanding that have come with those years I have gained since 28.
There will always be times I miss the impulsiveness of those years—running here and there, living on three hours of sleep, or dunking a basketball. I think back fondly on those times, but I hope that each of us finds a way to appreciate the moments in which we are living.
Each time the year ends and a new begins, we have the chance to seize the now, which is a better alternative than looking back with frustration over a year past, or rolling our eyes in pessimism over the year to come.
Indeed, it is in the now that you and I have the responsibility to count our blessings, to address our problems with courage and honesty, to drive out the bad influences and behaviors that corrupt us, and to do our little part to leave a piece of this world better than we found it.
Why must we do these things now? Have you had good success putting off difficult tasks until tomorrow? Because I have not.
Besides, when will be a better time than now? What sign are we awaiting before we begin our positive improvement? There is no magic in tomorrow, after all. It doesn’t even exist yet: we just anticipate that it will come as always.
And when tomorrow does arrive, it will just be another now for you and me to seize. I hope your year has begun well, and my challenge to you is simple enough: Let us work in 2015 to leave northwest Missouri better than we found it. Sound good?
