Never too early to repent!

A recent Jewish Journal post features a tweet that reads, in relevant part,

Teshuva, or the possibility of change, "precedes the world" says Pirkei Avot, the Sayings of the Fathers".

Not quite.  You won't find this proposition anywhere in Avot -- but you will find it in the Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer. This is the same Rabbi Eliezer who has something incisive to say about teshuvah in the second chapter of Avot, at 2:15. "Repent one day before your death!"  His pupils were puzzled at this and asked him how they could know which day was the day before their deaths. That, he explained, is the point. If you repent every day, you will certainly repent the day before you die.