Text of the meditation
Do not tell your soul, "You will be purer tomorrow"; say instead, "You will be pure now." Tomorrow is too late for anything, and whoever sees help and salvation in tomorrow will keep failing and falling today. You fell yesterday! You sinned grievously! Having realised this, leave it at once and for ever, and watch that you do not sin now.
While you are bewailing the past, every gate of your soul stands unguarded against sin's entrance now. The foolish person, preferring the boggy side of procrastination to the firm highway of Present Effort, says, "I will rise early tomorrow; I will get out of debt tomorrow; I will carry out my intentions tomorrow." But the wise person, realising the momentous import of the Eternal Now, rises early today; keeps out of debt today; carries out their intentions today; and so never departs from strength, peace and ripe accomplishment.
You will not rise by grieving over the irremediable past, but by remedying the present.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.