A little while ago I signed up to receive emails from the Flylady. Yes, I've mentioned her before, haven't I? You can Google her if you don't remember.

She warned me, right at the start, that she would be sending me about four emails a day! Gulp!

She has a household task for every day, a special project for every day, a piece of advice or encouragement for every day and a testimonial every day from someone who has found her methods useful. Often there is a video too! I'm sure you can imagine how quickly these emails build up into an unmanageable mess!

I'm so busy, that sometimes I don't even read the emails, let alone accomplish the household task for the day. As for the project of the day, Nope! And – watching a fifteen-minute video? Forget it!

Fortunately, when you sign up, the Flylady gives another very good piece of advice. "Don't try to catch up."

Yesterday has gone. Yesterday's task has gone. Don't worry about it: repetitive household tasks come around again. Don't beat yourself up about yesterday, start from today.

So, I delete all her emails from yesterday. Yesterday is irrelevant – today is what matters.

I think this applies to more than emails about housework.

Very often we allow ourselves to become stressed by things which have built up over time. We know that if we did a little and often, we would not be in this place of overwhelm. So, in addition to the panic over how much we must do right now, we castigate ourselves over not doing that little and often. That's not helpful.

We tend to spend too much time dwelling on the mistakes of the past. While it is lovely to reminisce over old lovely memories, we spend our time now in the past, wishing we had done things differently, wishing we could change outcomes: wishing the "now" we are now in, were different.

If that's you, I want you to stop it, right now!

Because we cannot go back and change anything.

It's not only pointless, but self-destructive, playing the "If only I had..." game.

All we have is what we have in this moment.

In this moment at 6.30am in a generic hotel room in Cardiff, where my daughter and I are on a university visit, I'm writing this because I did not have time earlier in the week. Or perhaps I didn't make the time, or prioritise writing this over doing something else. Or maybe I forgot. It doesn't matter. I have promised Caroline she will have this blog by 7am, so I had better get a wiggle on!

There is a saying, "The past is history, the future is a mystery, today is a gift, which is why we call it the present."

We can only make our best future by giving all to the present, and not waste time, energy and emotion by regretting yesterday.

Although, learning the lessons from yesterday? That's another blog!

Mary

A Moodscope member.