Thomas Lux once said, "Friend, please forgive me for dying so little today." Sometimes we outlive ourselves by carrying yesterday's thoughts and feelings into today. If we carry too many yesterdays with us, we may find ourselves missing too much of today. Like the lady in Dickens' Great Expectations, we might find ourselves in a shuttered room full of memories living out of our past. To find ourselves alive and fully real right now, we can die to yesterday's pains and pleasures, to all that we were in the past. Dying daily to the past is to come alive and feel vital, fulfilled and ever-new. It is particularly helpful to forgive and release old memories of pain, hurt and sorrow; we really don't have to be who we were then any longer. No one keeps us in the past but ourselves; no one can open the door to living now but ourselves. Choosing to be fully present in this live gives us tremendous energy to go forward into newness and joy.