“I’m having a really crappy day” is probably what we say more than: “I’m having a superbly wonderful day”. What I’m concerned, that’s not fair, as we no doubt have more good days than bad days; so why give bad days the extra credit? Of course we also have those days in between that are titled “average”, nothing to write home about – just, well “average”. Sounds familiar?
I was about 9, home alone and bored stiff. My father was at work and my mother out shopping or something. My brother… well, he wasn’t there to pester me; but bored I was. I sat on the lawn in the garden and violently struck some huge garden scissors into the grass and then pulled the handles apart to break up the soil. Not for any other reason than I was bored. I did it again and again and only stopped when the very sharp and pointed scissor blades were about ¼ inch into the back of my lower leg. After moments of extreme screaming relating to the horrific horror and, oh yeah, that sincere and agonizing pain, I carefully pulled the garden scissors out of my leg, which opened up a fast flow of blood, with some white tendon or muscle tissue now sticking out; but the blood was the worst. So you say: exaggerated big time in retrospect? No, it was actually worse.
I placed my dirty hand over the flow of blood and tried that way to get up the stairs and into the apartment. Every time I moved my hand to walk faster, the blood stepped up pouring out; so back the hand went to stop it.
I finally made it through the living room, the hallway and into the bathroom, still screaming in shock. My mother had told me, “always clean wounds”, which I did with additional pain. I even tried to stuff the tendon tissue bit back in with my thumb; but I did not succeed.
After some time and loss of about 7 liters of blood, it felt like, it all finally slowed down and gave me a short moment to place a huge band aid over the cut; it wouldn’t stay plastered. I tried again and again, but it didn’t help. I wiped more blood up and when fairly clean and dry, I quickly wrapped a fat roll of gauze around my leg and the wound, and though it was still bleeding through in the process, it did finally stop. I was positive it was because there was no more blood left, substantiated by my eerily white face.
As my mother was supposed to be home by bus within the hour, I limped into my room where I had a view of the bus stop from a big window. To get a better look, I pulled up the very heavy wooden blinds and secured the pull-line on the hook.
With my nose pressed flat against the window, one hand covering the gauze, blood and protruding tendon, tears in my eyes and wishing for mom to show up so bad, the 66 kilo wooden blinds suddenly came tumbling down and smashed my face into the windowsill, causing my nose to bleed, my scalp opening up and my world to fully collapse.
Now that was a really, really bad day… no matter how much my mother kissed my boo-boo; and I still have the scars to prove it. Ever had one of those days?
In retrospect it’s good to have a day like that, because all other days shine in comparison. Luckily, that’s about as bad as any bad day I ever had, so I feel I’m lucky in that department. My crappy days, even combined do not measure up to some unfortunate people’s one single day of misfortune. I do think about that often and then I knock on wood.
When we have the option of making it a bad day or a good day, I’m sure good days win. Of course the more dramatic “bad” days are something to write home about, but, nah, I’ll stick to making my days as good as I can make them.
Good or bad days rely a lot on attitude, like what do we really want them to be. Sure bad days can suddenly pop up on a good day and screw everything up; most of the time not at our own doing.
Good days take a bit of work, but are a lot more rewarding. I know from the second I swing them legs out of bed if it’s going to be a good day or not. It will be good when I feel rested, have a schedule in line of stuff I really like to do and other factors that will make it all add up. And for the most I’m right – and that’s normally how the day progresses; mainly because I want it to – remember that “effort” thing?
Sure, crap pops up, but on a good day I do solve whatever the crap is in a more positive manner – I try not to let a good day be knocked down to a bad day. And when I think about it, making it good days is not that hard. Bad days are easy in comparison, as we just blame everything and everybody around us and then let it roll. But the reward is – well, crappy.
Average days are just that – average. We don’t put out a lot of effort to make them special; we just hang in there, do the minimum to function – and another day down the drain, compared to what we could have made of it. Just thinking about it makes me a bit sad – but more so disappointed, because it doesn’t take much to make it a bit more positive and exciting and good – really.
So, let’s look at the bigger picture: I’ve lived 23,408 days so far (that’s 66-1/2 years). Let’s just guesstimate 15,000 good days, meaning days I was happy with; and how about 6,000 average days (Yuk), which gives me 2,408 really crappy days. Okay, so these are just guesstimates, but let’s go with it, shall we?
When we normally count an off day here and there, it’s not that big of a deal – and we have plenty to take from - we think. But when we add it all up, I must accept that I have been in a really crappy mood for 6.8 years. And what a total waste of time that was and it sucks high heaven; don’t you think?
The good part is that according to the above guesstimates, I have had about 42 years of good days. Let’s not negate the fact, that “some” individuals might dispute that it could not possibly have been that many. Among those in line, but not limited to: my wife, kids, immediate family, some friends, faithful pets (I thought they were), my Mother – oh, and a few co-workers and colleagues, several employees, some teachers, a few professors here and there, past girlfriends, that jerk boss back then – well, you get the idea… But what I’m concerned, most of those years were good.
But keep looking at the numbers and think what you can actually do about it – starting today; it does make me want to tighten the happy-belt a bit, move more average and bad days into good days– are you coming with me? It takes a bit more effort, but our daily lives would be so much better – and that I’m very sure of and I think you might be as well. Want to try it out?
We already have Good Friday, so let's go for Good (just about) Every Day?
Until next Monday (which is now good…)
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