Thoughts about Life
"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24
Why do we say things like "I am having such a bad day"? Why do we say things like "today is going to be a bad day"? You are not, and it won't be. When we set the attitude that we have for the day that we have had so far, we have nobody to blame but ourselves for our mood.
When we set the tone for own day, we have nobody to blame but ourselves when we have exactly the day that we expect!
Who'd've thunk?
The only reason that something is negative because it doesn't happen the way that we wanted to. Negativity is in the eye of the beholder.
You may think that was the most obvious and non-profound statement ever, but it needed to be said. Events are just things. Circumstances are just things. They have no emotion, no feeling. When it thunderstorms, some people sit on their porches to watch it rage. Others hide out in their houses and cringe at the thunder and worry about the lightning. The thunderstorm is just a thing--it's a person's reaction to it that cause it to be "bad" or "good".
When we get a flat tire on the way to work, we are upset because we did not want that to happen; it was not in our plan. If we oversleep and end up being late for work, we are upset because it was not in our plan. But maybe we have an understanding boss who sees that we are normally late, and no one is upset. Some people might even say that leaving so late for work prevented you from having a fatal accident. I don't necessarily subscribe to that line of thinking--although there have been times where, if I had to been just a moment sooner were a moment later, my day would have taken a much different turn. When we can directly see a bad situation avoided like that, then we can be grateful for it.
The thing is, if we don't see it--if we don't see that being late for work made us miss being behind the truck that dumped its load on the highway, if we don't see that getting stuck in traffic kept us from crossing an intersection where someone ran a red light--we don't necessarily have to sit around thinking about it, either. It's hard for people to be grateful for blessings that they don't see, like an accident they never had, a trip over debris on the sidewalk and a face plant that never happened, and so on.
Even so, there is always a way to not look so negatively of the negative experiences that we have. If we get a flat tire, we can be grateful that we have the skills to change it, or that a kind stranger stopped to help us. If we get rear-ended or have some other type of car accident, we can be grateful that were walking around and complaining about it, instead of being on life-support in shock trauma. If we are super busy at work, we can be grateful that we have the skill set in order to handle the work that is coming in, or that we have the team that can get the work done together.
Now, I understand that there are some days when the negative thing on negative thing on negative thing on negative thing happens. It is just the way that life works. You get up late for work, the kids are slow in getting ready, the hot water runs out by the time you get to your shower, your car doesn't want to start when you go to leave for work, the dog gets out and you have to chase him down and get him back in the house before you can go, traffic was jammed up and somebody cut you off, and then somebody else did too, you're a few minutes late to work and your boss comes down on you like an iron hammer, you have a workload on your desk but it would take you on three full days with no breaks to complete, no one on your team wants to help you out – I understand that we all have days like that at some point.
But wouldn't it be better to say "look at all the bad things that happened today, and I responded to each one of them with grace and/or compassion"?
Don't let your negative day, or just a few negative things, define who you are and your outlook on the day, the week, the month, and life in general.
