Bad Days

Every now and then I have a bad day. There might be a series of events that caught me off guard. Things that trigger me can include unexpected financial expenditures or unexpected things happening at work. They are often things that are outside of my control, or that relate to something that happened awhile ago that has "come home to roost."

Bad days and good days seem to have one thing in common--we assume that they are going to continue. So if there are a couple bad things that have come together, we assume it is a trend rather than just a bad roll of the dice.

This is harder to take when it is three or four bad things than when it is three or four good things. It can be helpful to see this, to think of times in the past that may have been similar, or even to repeat that old standby, "This, too, shall pass."

And to see that, for the most part, things are just happening. Our reactions, and our interpretations, come from the stories that we've told ourselves about those things. That something should not have happened or that someone should have behaved differently (or my personal favorite, "should have known better." I fall for that one all the time!)

What are your stories? Are they true, or not?

Jeff