What will the years tell us that the days will never know?

‘The years teach us much, which the days never knew.’ 

American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote beautifully captures the balance of perspective, patience, plans and the here and now. 

It is a quote I first heard from a colleague which, rather fittingly has, over time, come to mean more and more to me. 

I’ve written before about plans and perspective, being and becoming.

Where may Waldo Emerson’s framing be most useful for us? 

What do we need to be able to hold what only the years can know? 

What do we need to learn that day by day? 

If we added up each day before us, as we are, what would the years tell us?

How does that compare to what we want to know in years to come? 

It brings to mind Bill Gates’ idea that ‘most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.’

And what of the years that have come before us, what do they already know that we can bring to each day? 

What will the years know about now, that we can only guess at? 

While all this feels true, that only time will tell — in the natural human context of wanting to achieve things with our lives, we are required to act and trust in the cumulative effect of those actions over time to tell us how they add up — it begs the question: if only time will tell, what if I find out it tells me what I don’t want to hear? What if all those days don’t amount to what we want them to? 

Even if our daily efforts and ambitions don’t amount to what we want, what do we still want the years to know? 

What needs to be the case so that regardless of where we are in years to come, the years tell us what we hope to hear? 

What does that mean for our days? 

For me, not necessarily for everyone, this is about how I approach those days: if I never arrive, how do I want the journey to have been?

What will the years know, that all my days and years, will never know? 

Because there will always be more years that will know more than I will ever know. 

So what do the years know already that the days can hardly know? 

What will the years to come know that the days can hardly know?

What is possible when we all consider the things the years will know that today we can never know?