So, you're stuck where you never wanted to be. There are circumstances that lock you in to location, vocation, or persistent hardship. All of your longing is for something beyond your reach and control. Your dreams seem to require outside intervention. Your greatest successes and sweetest memories are in the past. Yesterday was far better than today, even if it was a mediocre existence.
There are two extremes to reject:
On one hand, people in captivity to negative circumstances are not to be paralyzed by their regrets with regards to the past. What has been has been. It can be incorporated into our future success or it can control our thinking and limit our options by crippling our attitudes. We have the choice.
On the other, we are not to be lulled into lethargy awaiting eschatological hope which, while very real, is not meant to cripple our lives in the present. Rather, hope beyond ourselves is meant to enhance our lives and teach us to live our very best lives in the moment.
We are called to do the best we can in the present. There is honor in this simple determination to live with dignity and joy. When it becomes a celebration of the life God gives and the Giver who gives it, it is also worship:
"We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!"
Enjoy the video - that's Bernstein himself. Thanks, YOUTUBE!