The other day, I heard a song that reminded me of my younger years when it seemed that we had so little that everything we wanted would have to wait until “someday.” The song was by Rob Thomas and part of it went like this: “And maybe someday we’ll figure all this out, Try to put an end to all our doubt, Try to find a way to make things better; Maybe someday we’ll live our lives out loud, We’ll be better off somehow, someday.” Probably every young couple struggling to make ends meet can relate to those verses, reminding them that someday things will be better. Someday is a universal word that is used by young and old alike. For the young, it is growing up and aspiring for something or aspiring to be somebody special someday. I can hear myself saying as a teenager that someday I want a job like that, a car like that, a house like that; someday, I’m going to have a pair of boots like that, etc. Someday represents “suspended hope,” not just for youth but for everyone who ever aspires to be or have something a little better someday.
At every period of our lives, my wife and I aspired “to be” or “to have” or “to do” something someday. Someday is a “looking forward” word. Whatever our current circumstances may be they have no bearing on the looking forward mentality. The very wealthiest as well as the very poorest among us have looking forward ambitions or hopes. Without a “someday,” what would life be like? We all need a “someday” to look forward to. The hope of someday is energizing and gives many the will to tolerate; it is the “now” knowing that someday things will be different.
For many that “someday” will never come; the dream will never see fruition, or the light of day, and do you know what? It really doesn’t matter, because that someday dream propelled us forward, and, at least, it gave us some hope to carry us a little further through life. It is very common to change dreams in the middle of the stream. It may be an even bigger and more elaborate “someday” dream, or it may become a more realistic dream. The unrealistic dream evolves into a rationalization that the dream was beyond our means, beyond our capacity. Our rationale will be something like this: “It was a good dream, but we are pretty fortunate to have ended up with what we have and who we have become.”
Older couples’ someday dreams may be minimal, but the someday dreams of our children can excite us just as well. In some cases, they become our someday dreams. Some of us are to that point in life where we can say, in regards to “someday,” I haven’t forgotten what those someday dreams have meant to me and the kind of motivating force “someday” has been in my life. They haven’t all come to pass, but for the most part I am satisfied with what I have and who I am. But we should always encourage youth to look to that “someday” time when their fondest hopes and prayers may be answered. For many youth, it will be a “material someday,” for others it will be a “spiritual someday.” The someday dream for some may be, excitedly, opening a letter from the First Presidency with their family standing by, to find out where they will be sent on their two-year mission for the church. Others “spiritual someday” dream will have them standing in the temple of our God with the one that they were just betrothed to for time and throughout eternity.
For the more mature, “someday” may be waiting for retirement and the freedom from making a living, to an opportunity to serve a mission with their spouse or spend time doing family history and temple work. Like all the other somedays, that may never come to fruition. Those retirement plans may also slip through our web of dreams. There are some “someday” dreams that can be done now, now while we are still young, still working, still healthy, still vibrant and able to do the things we may not be able to do later. Family History and temple work are things we should do now because our someday and/or tomorrow may be a different reality than we had planned.
I have always enjoyed the “common man’s poet,” Edgar A. Guest. He wrote a poem he named “Tomorrow” (I have edited it to make it shorter)
Tomorrow
“He was going to be all that a mortal should be—Tomorrow. No one should be kinder or braver than he—Tomorrow.
A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,
Who’d be glad of a lift and who needed it, too;
On him he would call and see what he could do—Tomorrow. It was too bad, indeed, he was busy today,
And hadn’t a minute to stop on his way;
More time he would have to give others, he’d say—Tomorrow. But the fact is he died and he faded from view,
And all that he left here when living was through
Was a mountain of things he intended to do—Tomorrow.
Someday. What a wonderful word in our wonderful world. May God bless us with the faith, the energy and the desire to be able to do some of the things today what we planned to do “someday” at least in respect to our forever family. Adopt the motto of the Japan Fukuoka Mission: “Obedience is the price, faith is the power, love is the motive, the spirit is the key, and Christ is the reason.”