Day-tight Compartments

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

The most widely read book of the twentieth century on the subject of anxiety was Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, in which the famous self-help expert suggested thirty ways to overcome worry. Carnegie’s first rule was “Live in day-tight compartments.” While we should plan for the future, we shouldn’t worry about what tomorrow may hold.

Carnegie said, “You and I are standing at this very second at the meeting place of two eternities: the vast past that has endured forever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time. We can’t possibly live in either of those eternities . . . but, by trying to do so, we can wreck both our bodies and our minds. So let’s be content to live the only time we can possibly live: from now until bedtime.”^a

Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and the psalmist said, “This is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Just take life one day at a time, trusting God’s grace from sunup to sundown.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

THOMAS CARLYLE