Why was I given this day?
Questions which challenge our purpose
I came across this poem, At the End of the Day: A Mirror of Questions by John O’Donohue in his book, Benedictus, Book of Blessings. Each line could be a prompt for a whole week of journalling.
What dreams did I create last night?
Where did my eyes linger today?
Where was I blind?
Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?
What did I learn today?
What did I read?
What new thoughts visited me?
What differences did I notice in those closest to me?
Whom did I neglect?
Where did I neglect myself?
What did I begin today that might endure?
How were my conversations?
What did I do today for the poor and the excluded?
Did I remember the dead today?
When could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?
Where did I allow myself to receive love?
With whom today did I feel most myself?
What reached me today? How did it imprint?
Who saw me today?
What visitations had I from the past and from the future?
What did I avoid today?
From the evidence – why was I given this day?
This goes pretty deep for an end-of-day examination of conscience. The key question, to me, is the last one, “Why was I given this day?” This runs close to the question, “What is the point of me?” If we can’t answer that, then we haven’t discovered the secret of life or found any way in which to put our lives into context.
The question about the gift of the day presupposes there is someone or something to do the giving, rather than it just being a twist of fate that I have been allowed to be alive today. Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I am trying to read at the moment, has one of his characters analyse why he is in a particular relationship. He decides it is the result of several miraculous coincidences, including him wandering into a particular restaurant at a particular time when he wasn’t planning to be there. He met a particular woman who also wasn’t supposed to be there. I believe a current film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, explores the same topic. It hasn’t had great reviews but I think I would like to have seen it.
We need to be able to provide some answers. Why was I given this particular day to live in? I have used up plenty of the earth’s resources - to feed me, exercise me, transport me - but what have I done in return to make the world a better place? If we see our lives as some sort of progression, then I think it is a worthwhile question to ask and answer. If we all have a mission of making the world better, small step by small step, it is appropriate to look at each day and see whether we have achieved a little more on this journey. Life doesn’t always make this easy and sometimes we seem to fall backwards. But at least we are asking the question.
Source and Credit:
Author: John O’Donohue
Book: To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
Publisher: Doubleday (or other editions/imprints)
Year: The original publication of the work that contains this section was in 2007 (published posthumously, as he passed in early 2008), with the Doubleday edition often cited as 2008.