You Never Know How the Day Will Go
You choose if that’s a source of comfort, joy, fear, or trepidation.
Everybody has bad days.
That’s how the world works. Shit happens. Random happenstance comes to pass. The best-laid plans might go brilliantly or horrifically. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.
There are so many factors that can and will impact you every day. Weather, traffic, the whims of other people, the passage of time, and way more things than I care to list here. Yet all these things, and more, can, will, and do impact your life every single day.
Here’s the largest issue with this: there is nothing you can do about it.
You cannot control other people, traffic, weather, time, and on and on. They exist beyond you and your ability to control them. Thus, to all intents and purposes, you roll the dice every day. Will you roll a natural 20 and have an amazing day where it all goes right? Or will you roll a 1, and have a terrible, horrid, no-good day? Most likely you’ll roll a number between these extremes.
Let’s make this more complicated. If the day is divided into morning, afternoon, and evening, does that mean you re-roll for each? Could be. Given 24 hours in a day, and being awake for 12-20 of them, could you be rolling the dice every hour, every minute? Yup.
You never know how the day will go. You can plot, plan, and approach with all sorts of expectations. But you can’t control anything apart from that.
What you can control is your approach to it.
You choose how you approach your day
Have you ever woken up, and almost immediately strained a muscle, tweaked your back, stubbed a toe, or the like? Did that lead to a further downward spiral, and before you knew it the day seemed to go from bad to worse to “are you fucking kidding me”? I know I have.
Despite this, you are choosing how you approach the day. If it begins poorly, and you allow that to dominate your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions, odds are the day will go poorly.
Alternate scenario:
Have you ever woken up, and almost immediately felt refreshed, excited for the day, ready to take on whatever came your way? Did that lead to an upward rise, and before you knew it the day seemed to go from good to incredible to “fuck yeah!”? I’ve been there.
If you allow the positive energy and emotion to dominate your day, that can positively spread through your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions, and odds are the day will go well.
In both scenarios, things outside of your control can swiftly change everything. The bad day can turn good with unexpected praise, the good day can turn bad with unexpected criticism.
Anywhere along the way, however, the choice is yours. Do you approach the day from a place of misery or a place of gratitude? You choose, throughout any given day, how to approach the day. Hence, if you’re in a good place or bad place, you choose where to be, remain, or change.
No matter what you choose, you never know how the day will go. Life is too unpredictable for that.
You never know how the day will go
Planned or unplanned, anticipated or stumbled into, you simply never know how the day will go. You can plan your day out to the minute, set all sorts of things into motion, and then, via random happenstance, chance, or circumstance, it all goes wildly better or horridly wrong.
One of my greatest joys is medieval rapier combat. I’ve been fencing for over 30 years. I recently entered a tournament and started out excited to see how I’d do. But a warm-up fight went very so-so. My first tourney bout I lost. A fight I was pretty sure I’d win, I didn’t. My day got no better from there.
I felt bad about myself, my skill (or perceived lack thereof), and my performance. I stopped after the tournament, and rather than do pick-up fights – since I was already not in the best headspace – I put my gear away. The rest of the day I spent with friends.
Then I had a phenomenal conversation, hung out with more friends, and got some good news. That helped me reset my position, choose to alter my approach, and rather than let the bad experience related to my fencing dominate the rest of my day, I refocused away from the negative.
I had no idea how my day would go. When the answer was “not great”, rather than let that be the end – and my approach for the rest of the day – I chose my approach differently. It ended up being a good day with people I enjoy, fun, laughter, and more.
Because you never know how the day will go, you can choose and decide, via mindfulness, what approach you take. That can make all the difference, and you can employ it at will via mindful choices and decisions.
You never know how the day will go. Choosing your approach isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you never know how your day will go, and no matter what you plot and plan, things outside your control might change it, you can choose your approach. Knowing that the unexpected can, will, and does happen – to you and everyone – you can recognize and acknowledge this. With that, you get to choose how to alter your approach, face the day you’ve gotten, and work with it to improve it.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-fifth (555) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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