I don’t know. Maybe this will cheer you up. I came up with the phrase in the late 1950’s, while I was in the army in Germany. About ten years later, as Creative Director of Ackerman Advertising in Oklahoma City, I wrote a song around it, and used it as the theme for Oklahoma City Federal Savings and Loan. Pat Catlett, Tom Kroutil, Johnny Shannon and I produced a couple of TV spots using it and first ran it on New Year’s Day, 1970. It went viral overnight. More than 50,000 letters, cards, and phone calls from all over the world, even countries where English wasn’t the primary language, and from as far away as Australia. People told us it saved marriages, kept people from committing suicide, brought families back together, and a whole lot of other good stuff. Problem is it became so successful it turned into an instant cliché. Too bad I didn’t copyright, huh?
Anyway, here it is. (BTW, that’s me singing it, too.)
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Here are the lyrics – I added a verse a few years ago.
How long with those old worries run around inside your brain?
Why do you let what’s done and gone come back to cause you pain?
My brothers and my sisters, I remind you once again,
Yesterday is yesterday, and so it will remain.
A thousand broken promises are burning in your mind.
You spend a lifetime longing for the life you’ve left behind
In a world of miracles, how can you be so blind?
Life is full of wonder, only seek and you will find.
Today was once tomorrow, till the rising of the sun.
The world is full of blessings, you may gather, one by one.
Think of where you’re going, and not what you might have done.
Time is time unending, but for you it’s just begun.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
