“Let us set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realise too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” Seneca, Moral Letters.

As I drove my wife to work early this morning, she said she wondered whether today would be ‘a good day’. Now, giving a Stoic lecture in the car isn’t always the best time and place, so I simply remarked that today is all we have and, in the words of Og Mandino in his book ‘The Greatest Salesman in the World’, “I will live this day as if it is my last”. My wife’s job is a nursing sister in a specialist acute cancer hospital, treating patients with serious illness, including some with covid-19 too. Her meaning of ‘good’ in that environment no doubt differs to mine.

In these moments it helps to realise that what we have, here and now, is all that we know we have. Everything else is a hope for something that might never come (such as tomorrow), or regret for a time gone by (yesterday). Seize this time now, be grateful, and let your spirits be inflated by your acceptance.