Is today the first day of the rest of your life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doug Savage’s Savage Chickens cartoon for February 5, 2026 titled First has the following dialogue:

 

First Chicken: Today is the first day of the rest of your life!

 

Second Chicken: This second is the first second of the rest of this minute!

 

Second Chicken [continuing]: That’s how ridiculous you sound.

 

Where did that tired proverb come from? The Wikipedia article on Synanon has a section Beginnings saying their founder Charles E. ‘Chuck’ Dederich Sr. coined the phrase. But the 2012 Dictionary of Modern American Proverbs instead says on page 260 (see Google Books) that it first shows up in the January 29, 1968 Helena Montana Independent Record (but likely is older than that):

 

“The colorful fluorescent posters lining the walls of the crowded Student Union theatre bore such messages as….’Today is the first day of the rest of your life’.”

 

Another Wikipedia article attributes that proverb to The Digger Papers.

 

That proverb also is on a sign in a ‘Welcome to Hell’ Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An illustration for “This second is the first second of the rest of this minute!” is shown above based on an OpenClipArt image.