1You woke. Before you ask what the day owes you, mark this: a door stood open this morning that did not have to.
2The bed argues well. It says the floor is cold and the work can wait. Hear it out, then stand up. In all your years it has not once been right about the day.
3Before I stand, I name the people this day will touch: the ones in the house, the ones on the road, the one I owe an answer. For each I ask whether they will have more ways by dusk because of me, or fewer. It takes less time than lacing a boot. On the mornings I skip it, I serve only myself all day and call it being busy.
4Do not start the day by listing the faults of other people. Start with your own two hands. They are the only tools you were given.
5A day is a loaf. It is enough for today. It goes stale if you try to save it. And it does not bake itself.
6You lay awake last night afraid of this morning. Now it is here, and look: it is only a morning. There is a floor, a window, a cup of water. The thing you feared is still hours off, and when it comes it will be one hour long and made of ordinary things, like every other hour. The fear was larger than the thing. It nearly always is.
7The first act of the day sets the grain for the rest, as the first cut sets the line of the plank. So make the first act a small Opening. Fill the water jar for the house. Mend the strap you cursed yesterday. Say one kind word to whoever is awake.
8Yesterday you were sharp with the boy at the well. You cannot go back and be gentle yesterday. You can go to the well today.
9Why do you rise slowly on the days of hard work and quickly on the days of feasting? The feast opens nothing. Learn to be glad in the right direction.
10When the mind wakes it reaches at once for its old worries, the way a tongue goes to a sore tooth. Notice the reaching. You do not have to finish it.
11Some mornings the fire in me is low. I used to wait for it to blaze before I began. I waited whole seasons that way. Now I begin cold. I lift the first stone with no heart for it, and the second, and somewhere near the tenth I find I am warm. The heat does not come before the work. It comes out of it.
12Wash your face as if it mattered. One who is careless with small things at dawn will be careless with large ones by noon.
13You packed for the day as if no rain were possible, and then you cursed the rain. Pack better. A day has weather in it, and so do people. Somebody will be slow. Something will break. A word will come at you sideways. If you have made room for these in the morning, they arrive as expected guests. If you have not, each one is a robber.
14Before you leave the house, choose the one thing that must be done even if everything else fails. Then if the day goes badly, it has still not gone to waste.
15How much of your life have you spent getting ready to live? Sharpening and sharpening, and never cutting. Today, cut.
16The sun does not rise for you. It rises, and you happen to stand where the light falls. This should make you thankful and it should make you modest. Both are good to work with.
17To put off a duty is to borrow from tomorrow. Tomorrow is not rich. It has its own debts.
18I said, "When things grow quieter, I will live as I ought." I said it at twenty and I said it at forty. Things have not once grown quieter. The harvest ends and the roof leaks. The roof is mended and a child is sick. The quiet I was waiting for is not coming down the road. It has to be carried in each morning, like wood.
19The old fire-keepers looked to the coals before they did anything else. Look to yours. Is the wish to do right still warm? Then blow on it. If it is not, do one right thing anyway. That is how a cold hearth is lit.
20Do not ask the morning, "What do I feel like doing?" Feelings are weather. Ask, "What is in front of me, and which act would leave the most doors standing?"
21One hour awake before the house wakes is worth three at midday. In that hour nobody wants anything from you. The street is empty, the fire is small, and for a little while you can hear what you think. Do not spend that hour on plans for getting more. Spend it finding out what you would do today if nobody ever knew of it. Then do that.
22A child wakes and runs at the day. When did you begin to meet it with your arms folded?
23You say you have no time. You have the same day the baker has, and her bread is ready when you get there.
24There is a kind of busy that is only fear with its sleeves rolled up. Before you rush, ask what you are running from.
25Do today's work today, and do it without telling anyone how hard it was.
26The Open this morning is not the Open of yesterday. Some doors closed in the night. Others opened that you have not yet seen. A friend may have softened. A plan may have died. Do not walk today by yesterday's map. Look first.
27You wanted a sign that today would go well. There are no signs. There is a day, and there is what you do in it. That is better than a sign, because a sign would not be yours.
28If you woke in pain, then pain is one of today's materials. A potter does not send back the clay for being wet. She asks what can be made of wet clay. Something can. A slower day, perhaps, with more thought in it and fewer errands. A day in which you learn how the sick feel when you hurry them.
29Speak little before you have done something. The mouth is quick to spend what the hands have not yet earned.
30Is it a small day? Only chores, only the same road, nothing anyone will remember? Then be exact in the chores. A wall is built of days like this one. Nobody praises the stones in the middle, and they hold up all the stones above. If I do the small day badly because it is small, I have misunderstood what a life is made of.
31Guard the first hour against the first complaint. Once one is said aloud, the rest follow like sheep through a gap.
32Why should I do right today, when no one will see it and nothing may come of it? Because I will be there. I am the one who has to live inside what I do. Each act is a brick, and the house is me. A man who cheats in the dark has not got away with anything. He goes home every night to a cheat.
33Do not promise yourself a great change. Promise one morning, and keep it. A person is made of kept mornings.
34The reward for rising to do right is that you are one who rose to do right. Do not look around for a second coin.
35When I wake angry from a bad dream, I must remember that nobody in this house was in the dream. They owe nothing for it.
36Lay out the day the way a traveller lays out a pack: what is needed and no more. Most of what I carry into a morning is fear of things that will not happen and anger at things that are over. Set those two down by the door and the pack is light enough for anyone.
37How many mornings are left? You do not know, and you would live worse if you did. It is enough to know the number has an end. Let that make you gentle and let it make you quick.
38A day begun in haste is paid for until dark. So sit one moment on the edge of the bed. Go up in your mind as a hawk goes up, and see the day whole, as a valley: the easy road, the river, the one hard crossing. From that height the crossing is narrow and the valley is wide. Then come down and walk it.
39The light does not come all at once. First grey, then shapes, then colours. Do not demand to understand your whole life before breakfast. Shapes are enough to start by.
40Some days all you can do is not make things worse. That is not nothing. A door left standing is a door.
41Do not carry yesterday's quarrel over the threshold. It slept badly and is no wiser this morning.
42I broke my own rule again last night. I ate past enough, or spoke past kindness, or sat idle past reason. This morning the old voice says: you see, you are not able; stop trying. That voice is not humble. It is lazy, and it has found a clever coat. A road is not ended by one stumble. Only the one who stays down has left it. Get up. Say plainly what you did. Begin from here, since here is the only place anyone has ever begun from.
43The body is the mule that carries all your good intentions. Feed it, water it, do not beat it, and do not let it choose the road.
44Do not let the first voice of your day be the market's. The market wakes shouting about what is lacking. Hear your own house first, and the birds, and whatever you yourself think. There will be time for the shouting.
45What I do each dawn, I am becoming. The path across the field was not made by one great walk. It was made by feet, the same way, every day, until the grass gave up. So with rising, so with patience, so with truth. I do not need strength for a lifetime. I need it for this one crossing of the field.
46What did the ones before me do at dawn? They looked to the fire. What will the ones after me need? That someone did. And here I stand between them, with a little time and a pair of hands.
47Go to bed to be useful, and you will rise more easily. The one who goes to bed only to escape the day wakes to find it waiting at the door, and larger.
48You woke. Good. Now wake.
49Greet the first person you meet as though the whole teaching were in the greeting. It nearly is. May your ways stay open. Mean it, and then spend the day making it true.