Since the dawn of man, people have had ‘bad’ days.
Humans are arguably the most complicated and interesting organisms the world has ever known and this is due entirely to the complexity of the human mind.
The human mind is truly a wonder of nature. Its power can be harnessed to do some incredible things, both good and bad. Humans are also very emotional creatures… but I like to think of us as thinking creatures instead.
I recently read an article about why humans are so emotional. As it turns out, our emotions are caused 100 percent by our thoughts. Meaning, two people could be in the exact same situation, but they can feel different emotions because they have different thoughts.
The article gave the following example:
Imagine two people were both at a neighbor’s house and this neighbor had a dog. One person might think, “This dog could hurt me!” and feel scared. This might happen if that person never had a pet dog before. The other person might instead think, “Oh, what a cute dog!” and feel happy. This might happen if that person grew up having dogs as pets.
Same situation, different thoughts--and therefore different emotions.
We are all going to experience unhappiness, sadness, depression, or some kind of negative emotion at some point. We are going to have ‘bad’ days. But based on science and the example I just gave, our bad days don’t have to be that bad.
We can use our thinking minds to see the silver lining. I am definitely an optimist and I almost always look at the glass half full. If I am having a bad day… I just remind myself that without the bad days, we wouldn’t have good days.
If the weather was perfect every single day (sunny, 80º, and no wind), then we would start to take it for granted. We wouldn’t even notice it anymore. The ‘good’ days would become just ‘normal’ days. We would get used to the weather being perfect all the time.
Instead, it rains sometimes. It snows sometimes. It’s windy sometimes. It's cold sometimes. And when the weather sucks, it makes us think of those perfectly sunny days.
When those sunny days finally come, we appreciate them so much more.
Without the rainy days, sunny days wouldn’t be so great. I remember an old country song that said, “the bad times make the good times better.” I couldn’t agree more.
Next time you’re feeling down or having a bad day, remind yourself that without these days, the good days wouldn’t be as good. Use these bad days to learn something about yourself and to get better. Use the bad days to help you appreciate the good days more. Learn to love the bad days and remember that the good days will always come, sooner or later.
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