Life has its share of good and bad days

Emotional stability is something that most of us revere and want to achieve. We seek balance, peace, harmony and strive for Aristotle's Golden Mean. For those who have a difficult time achieving or maintaining emotional stability, having a bad day often arouses anxiety and the fear that the unstable times are returning. There are many things, however, that can cause us to perceive that we are having a bad day.

Consider the following.

• During the night Amy is awakened twice. First by a prank caller and several hours later when her infant child cries as a result of a nightmare. The interrupted sleep causes her to feel sluggish and groggy when the alarm goes off and as the morning unfolds, things seem to be getting worse. Burned pancakes, a stopped-up sink, and learning that her child has an earache were topped off by the mundane discovery of a very large and quite obvious hole in her last pair of pantyhose. Amy gets to the office with the feeling that a black cloud has descended and that old chip on her shoulder (that she thought she had gotten rid of) is poking its ugly head up again. As the morning progresses, she feels quite sure that several of her co-workers are needling her and her mood mirrors the blackest hole in Calcutta.

• Several blocks away, Brian is struggling with the day. Prior to leaving for work, his wife accused him of getting up on the wrong side of the bed because he was so grouchy. Then enroute to work, he was ticketed for speeding and upon arriving at work, the word was out that the company was downsizing. He had a fleeting fantasy of buying a one-way ticket to some remote south sea island and doing so with an anonymous name. Brian had been the product of an unhappy childhood. His wife, with great effort, had gotten him into counseling. Although he felt that he had made great progress, on this particular day, he felt it had all been wasted.

As individuals strive for emotional balance they need to remember that stable and static are not the same thing.

Everyone is entitled to, and more importantly, everyone should realistically expect to have some ordinary ups and downs in life. Statistically speaking, if nothing else, a certain percentage of days will have less than satisfactory occurrences. A flat tire, an overdrawn checking account, and a bad cold may all occur within close sequence of each other.

On these days we need to remember that there are also other days when it seems we can do no wrong, when everyone thinks we are great, and when life seems like a bowl of cherries swimming in milk chocolate.

The trick is to not let ourselves believe that a bad day is a harbinger of still more bad days. Believing this can, if fact, successfully predict that this will happen, just as we prophesized. Many great observers of human nature have demonstrated the power of positive and optimistic thinking in influencing our daily lives, but they too will admit that we all feel down sometimes.

On a bad day, we may simply try to get through the morning until lunch...get through the afternoon unit quitting time... and go home to get a good night's sleep and a fresh start the next day. This philosophy works well and can make a bad day, just that, just one bad day.

Copyright c 1994 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.