50% chance of having a good Day

50/50 CHANCE OF A GOOD DAY

Everyone knows the question, is the glass half empty or half full? As cliché as that may sound, it really is about how you look at things. Every day good things and bad things happen to each of us. Which group of events we focus on will depend on how we perceive the day has gone. In other words if we focus on what went wrong we will perceive that we had a bad day, but if we focus on what went right we will perceive that we had a good day. It is all about perception.

I remember a particular date that I perceived as a really bad day. I was complaining to my wife about the events that had transpired that day and how stressed it had made me. As always she was a good listener. Once I had exhausted ‘my poor pitiful me rant’, she simply smiled at me and said, “I am sorry you chose to have a bad day honey.” What! What do you mean I chose to have a bad day? She continued that life is all about choices, and you chose to let an event dictate your mood and things just snowballed from there. A little discombobulated I exclaimed, “O-yea! Well I am choosing to ignore you.” She smiled, grabbed my hand, and looked into my eyes and said, “I mean really think about it, are you going to remember any of this 10 years from now? If not, how important can it really be?” It’s times like that when I realize I would be lost without her support. My wife is one of those people that doesn’t let others control her mood. Someone cuts her off in traffic or in line, she just smiles and moves on. Someone gets upset and starts yelling, she just smiles and lets them finish their tantrum. Events like that make me wish I were as evolved as her. We continued our date night and enjoyed the rest of our weekend.

The following week I tried to keep in the forefront of my mind her words of wisdom. While it was hard at first it became much easier as time went on. I started keeping a list of everything that went right and what went wrong, sort of a pros & cons list. I noticed something really strange. The list seemed to come out balanced almost every day. As time went on I started only writing down the good things and if something bad happened I would review the good list. This made it much easier to focus on the good and control my perception of the day. Today it is almost automatic and I have strayed from an actual written list and just keep it committed to memory. I would like to say that I never get down, frustrated, or off track, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Every now and then I need another reality smack from my soul mate. However, there is one thing that I have come to realize after actually tracking my daily events. While there may be varying degrees of magnitude, on any given day there will be 50% of the day that goes right and 50% that goes wrong. It is up to you which part you focus on and thus your choice of how you perceive the day.