Better Than Any Later Hour

We all live with some uncertainties; we all at times fear failure; we all worry about many things that haven’t happened; and we all have regrets about some things that have happened. There is lingering in the minds of most of us some thoughts as to what we have done and what we have failed to do.
These thoughts linger in the background of our lives no matter how fast and feverish the pace of the passing seasons. Some have losses, accidents, illnesses; some, loss of loved ones; some, discouragement and disappointment. It is always so. Life is never always altogether trouble free for any of us.
But this we all must admit: that much of what we might have worried about hasn’t happened; much that could have occurred in the events of the world and in the affairs of men hasn’t happened.
In the words of one eminent observer: “The Creator and Preserver…has brought us by a way that we did not know” — a way through which we have survived, with so much to be thankful for.
True, we have troubles. Every generation has had — and every individual also. As the parents in one of Thornton Wilder’s plays said of the coming marriage of their son: “Yes, they’ll have a lot of troubles…Everybody has a right to his own troubles.” We cannot spare ourselves, or anyone else, all adverse events. (Nor can we legislate ourselves into or out of everything we went to, until men personally are willing to repent and improve.)
Sometimes those who are older say to the young: “It’s too late for us, but you do differently.” But none of us at any age should assume that it is too late to improve upon the past. It may be too late for some things, but so long as a person has any part of life left—or a step left to take, or a day left to live, he can improve upon the past.
Indeed, any present time is better than any later hour for repentance and improvement. And while there is yet a little left, it is a better time than later to turn toward whatever we should turn toward: not more mistakes, not more misunderstanding—but to turn, if need be, to what we should have done to what we yet should do—grateful for what we have, and also for much that hasn’t happened.