Have you had days when it seemed as if one bad thing after the other happened to you?
Of course "bad" is very hard to qualify, so maybe we just define it as "bad" according to your experience of it. But lets see how Collins thesaurus defines it: 1) harmful ex: Divorce is bad for children 2) severe ex: the pain was so bad she wanted to scream 3) inferior ex: many people live in bad housing 4) wicked ex: He was selling drugs but didn't consider himself a bad person 5) incompetent ex: having a bad eyesight didn't seem as bad as being totally blind 6) guilty ex: you don't have to feel bad about relaxing.
Perhaps a really bad day includes all these definitions all at once?
If we are honest with ourselves, do we really think it is possible to live life without bad things happening now and then, or do we expect life to be free from such experiences?
Most of us without even giving it a conscious thought, expect many things to go "right" automatically.
We spend little time worrying about whether the sun will be there in the morning, or if earth will keep spinning, or if gravity will keep working tomorrow as well as today. We expect our living quarters to still be there when we come home from work, studies, or play, and we expect the water to flow from the taps and the electricity to always be available at the flick of a switch.
What if none of the above could be taken for granted? People in New Orleans, Japan, Bali, and many other places, certainly know what its like when those very basic expectations are removed suddenly.
Is it possible that when we view events as "bad" it is partly because what we expected to take place, ...didn't?
In an ordinary day, how many things do we take for granted and only notice that we are doing so when what we expected to take place, didn't? Maybe this can also be applied to our relationships with other people? Once we think we know somebody, we have certain expectations and should there suddenly be a change in behaviour, we have to readjust our expectations. "My wife always sleeps on the left side of the bed, she has done so ever since we got married". When the wife tells her husband she thinks they should buy a new bed and that she wants to sleep on the right side, the husband is perplexed. "I want to quit football" the son announces and the parents immediately retorts "But you love football!", "Not anymore" the son replies.
There are times when things happen that affect us personally; we lose our job, someone steals our car, we miss out on a promotion, we get kicked off the team, the love of our lives walks out on us, we get struck down with a serious illness, our dog gets run over, etc.etc.....the options of "bad" stuff that can happen to us, are endless. But so are also the "good" things that happen in our lives, we just don't see them as such many times, we often take them for granted.
In a "bad" day, maybe we could ask ourselves how many "good" things also happened, because how we experience something has a lot to do with how we think and perceive that something.
If we expect our health to always be excellent although we eat too much and do no exercise, then being told by a doctor that our blood pressure is too high may unsettle us. If we expect our loved ones to know that we love them although we never tell them so, we may be taken off-guard when they tell us we don't love them. If we expect a life free from heartaches and disappointments, we may find ourselves bewildered when when we have to face such. Life it seems, includes both "bad" and "good" experiences, and it is up to us how we will define them.
Beside my bed I have a smooth pebble I found on the beach and on it I have written: Gratitude. I often hold that pebble in my hand to remind myself of all the wonderful and amazing good things that happen in my life every day. During turbulent periods I have it in my pocket so that I can feel it and constantly remind myself to not take anything good for granted.
"Bad" things happens, but so do "good" things, they happen collectively but also individually, and although we may at times feel as if we are alone in our suffering, we can rest assured that the "human experience" affects every human.
"Life is suffering" teaches Buddhist philosophy, "Life is difficult" is the opening line in M.Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled", "Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult" he goes on. It is in the whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning, and because of problems we grow."
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