John Bringenberg is an empty-nester father of two and grandfather of three from Denver, Colorado, where he works in the solar industry. Many people chose to rephrase the question, ‘How will we live tomorrow?’ as ‘how we should live’ or ‘how we hope to live’. Others choose to put time parameters on ‘tomorrow’. John simply decided to respond to the question from two different perspectives.  There is no single answer, and no limit on any individual’s responses.

How will we live tomorrow?

I found this a heavy question as soon as I begin to ponder it.   So there are two answers  here … the instant response, and the introspective. 

Instant:

“I want to sleep to the brink of the day.  Then start with a smile.  But instead it is often first a focus on the routine and the minutes of getting up and at ‘em … and then hopefully, the smile. Then I want to trudge through the day knocking off the things I must do plus tackle, or at least dabble, in some things I like to do.  When I head to bed, I feel best when I’m worn out and tired, able to reflect on accomplishment or progress – and while the next day starts to bubble up (Mr. Sandman I suspect – though my wife insists it’s just the snoring) and sends me to sleep.”

Introspective:

“Tomorrow in my mind’s eye is not in fact tomorrow but the short, mid or long future ahead.  It is very hard in the big picture to feel significant, especially when we think of our relationships like circles of a stone that lands in still water.  We have circles of close family relationships where we are all significant and always significant.   Consider then our neighborhood, work life, social interactions, social groups, extended family, our town, city, state, country … our planet.  Each circle is further away from our significance.   And so I wish to live tomorrow by being of some significance and to cast a circle as wide as I can.  I wish to live tomorrow so that my footprints and hand prints where I have walked and touched tread lightly and leave a better place in some way than before.”