Today, everything hurts.
There are days, when so many things go wrong at once, it starts to feel like this is it: I’ve used up all my chances over the years, and now it’s crap-city from here on out.
On these days, the brain doesn’t work properly. It’s important to remember that – it’s the thing that helps you perceive reality, after all.
When we feel bad, really bad, the whole world can seem to become infected with that badness, so you have to dig to find the brighter parts.
It starts with general frustration, as you try and keep up with the demands of others (and more so, your own conscious/ unconscious demands), then grows into a kind of raging against the world, your circumstances, the people around you, anything that helps you pretend you have some control over what you are experiencing.
And then eventually, it gives way to some kind of despair, or perhaps a sad acceptance, that this is how things are going to be for a while.
Some days, you just know you aren’t going to be at your best. This isn’t foreshadowing: The evidence is constant, and ongoing. The realization happens midday, not when you open your eyes in the morning.
And when that day comes, you can do just ONE thing right, for sure – you stay on the job to the end. You finish your shift, or the project, or whatever it is that stands in your way.
Because this is what you do now. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a musician, or a composer, or at least some kind of artist. That means you’ve found something rare, something that makes you happier than anything else.
So, if you aren’t going to do this, what else?
I did hit a slight turning point, when I realized there were, in the end, only one or two things that, had they been different, would have made the difference between a hard day and a good one.
For example, if my brain hadn’t felt like molasses, I would have felt on top of my barista shift, instead of missing orders and feeling I was always behind.
Or, if I’d known a little more about certain aspects of opening for the day, I might have finished that work more quickly, thus allowing me to be more ready for the first customers. Which probably would have helped with the molasses-feeling.
That’s helpful, because it reminds me that what made the day hard was likely just random chance; snake-eyes on the dice. Which means the next roll is just as likely to be a winner as it was the day before.
Maybe even a tiny bit MORE likely.
Photo Credits:
‘Silhouette Photo of Woman’ by Engin Akyurt from Pexels