Today I am taking a quick detour about expectations, reactions and free will (or choice).
Toseland didn’t sleep well last night, and his dog woke him up early. So he went back to sleep and when I met him for coffee this morning, he was all end of the world doom and gloom. For example:
- I didn’t sleep all night
- The dog woke me in the middle of the night
- I’m going to be late for work
- This is an awful day
- I don’t see how it could get any better
All this and more at 8 am…
Don’t get me wrong – all this is tragic stuff. And all of it on the same day might well be the stuff of nightmares. I can quite see how this would cast a certain kind of pall over your day. Especially a wet and gloomy day like today…
But I couldn’t help nodding along and thinking “bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, and I’m not on dialysis anymore.” (Yay!)
Or as Katy might think “bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, and I might die.” (Ironically, not literally)
So between the three of us, three different early morning choices of outlook for the same circumstances.
I really do think that 8 am is just a wee bit too early to consign an entire day to the eternal dustbin of life.
I checked on Toseland a short while ago. I know you will be relieved to know the dog is forgiven. But he thought his day had stayed bad all day. Personally, I think he started with the premise that this is a bad day and looked for corroborating evidence.
For me, that could be the start of a bad day, but I’m not on dialysis and I’m not dead – result! How could a day in MY life that starts without dialysis be bad? In the immortal words of James Reyne, “any day above ground is a good day” [1]. (I really must put that song on my phone).
So, the upshot here is that however bad it seems, it can always be worse. I recommend you choose to believe it is not that bad.
What would your choice be?
[1] http://youtu.be/aM1tdIulIMo (this link will launch the song so be prepared if you don’t want everyone wondering what you are up to).
I agree with you…but…once in a while one NEEDS a bad day as a form of indulgence. One NEEDS a bad day to more fully appreciate good days. (Yes, I know, all days are good days but…) One needs a bad day in order to remind one’s self of what is really important. And in the end, one person’s good day is another person’s bad day and vice versa. It is all about choice but I don’t see anything “wrong” with choosing a bad day now and then…as long as it’s only now and then. If it gets to be a way of life, it could be an indication of other things at issue. Weird idea: Someone could choose (at some level) to have a bad day to provide a learning platform for those close to them. In this case, Toseland gave you the gift of a blog topic! Thank you, Toseland! So in turn we can choose how to interpret someone else’s bad day…and the wheel keeps turning.
Thanks for your thoughts CND. I believe it is true that you need bad days to appreciate the good ones. I was also thinking that perhaps people like Toseland and I who come from the duty end of the family spectrum need to start building up some resilience to prepare for a trying time over Christmas, and perhaps these little difficulties build up a tolerance for the larger ones.