Have you ever been driving down the highway and some crazy driver cuts you off? Did you get angry? Maybe bang on the steering wheel? You probably let out a few choice words that grandma would most definitely wouldn't approve. Did that single moment ruin the rest of your day? C'mon be honest, we've all been there.
Whether it's a driver zipping into your lane blinker-free or you spilling coffee on your brand new shirt, we have all fallen victim to allowing relatively trivial instances ruin our entire day. You're probably reading this blog in hopes to banish, once and for all, those moments from your life. Well, my friend, you have come to the right place.
You see, getting rid of bad days just comes down to simple math. By math, I mean two illustrated graphs. Let me show you.
Above, you have two charts, Chart A and Chart B. For the moment, let's pretend these charts represent the stock market. So, that being the case, which one looks better to you?
Chart B, of course. Why is Chart B better? It's trending up. Why is Chart A so bad? Well, it's plummeting straight down, and generally, that is a look you want to avoid.
Pause for a second. Look a little closer. Can you see it? There is a resemblance between the two charts. In fact, Chart A and Chart B are the exact same chart. "How?" you ask. Chart A is just a magnified version of one of Chart B's dips.
What happens, far too often, is we live our lives through Chat A's lens. We function day-to-day with a micro focus; we only see the small picture. Rarely, do we zoom out and take in the entire frame.
When we get caught up living through Chart A's lens, those bad moments, like getting cut off on the highway or spilling a drink on your shirt, have the power to ruin our day. When we live only through Chart A, all we can see is the dip in the chart, and it can appear to be devastating. When we zoom out, however, and begin living through Chart B's lens, we can see these bad moments for what they really are, moments.
These charts are the micro picture and the macro picture. Chart A is a moment, and Chart B is a day. Chart A is a day, and Chart B is a week. Chart A is a week, and Chart B is a month. And so on and so on.
One of my favorite quotes reads, "There is no such thing as a bad day, only bad moments, and we choose how we respond to them."
That quote is precisely what these charts show. There are no bad days. Can you have a series of bad moments that feel like an entire day? Sure, but the likelihood of having 24 consecutive hours of bad moments is pretty darn low.
These charts aren't about math at all. They aren't about the stock market either. They are about perspective. Even when you feel like bad moments are coming one right after the other, it's important to know that they won't last. The current bad moment does not have to determine what happens next.
Yes, there will still be days where you feel pretty low; we will all have them, but remember in those moments, zoom out and take in the bigger picture; I bet you'll be proud of what you see.