So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.
Peter Gibbons in the film Office Space
There’s a reason this quote is so amusing and sadly charming: it resonates with most of us. Not because every day is the worst day of our lives but because when we’re having an awful moment, it feels like the worst moment because we’re IN it. Yesterday’s yuck, no matter how horrid, is over. Today’s feels like it’s all over us. And tomorrow? If we’re feeling negative, that’s just more ick to dread.
The days in our life are like pearls on a string. Though they are connected, as we go from one to the next, they are also separate. It is difficult to make sense of them one at a time and our most immediate feelings are about the one we’re in. That’s where our default awareness is.
The key is looking at life a week at a time. A week is the optimal unit for practically aligning life as we live it to the journeys of our life, whether they are journeys of self-growth, educational/professional journeys, or the shared journeys of relationships.
Individual moments and even days can still be crappy without those becoming the depressing signposts of our journeys. If a day is bad, it doesn’t mean the journey is bad. It was just one day in the week. Even two or three bad days doesn’t make for a bad week!
Reflecting on each week and planning then looking forward to the next will tend to keep us in a more positive mindset than evaluating each day, especially during a day’s worst moment. And that positivity, even when occasionally knocked about by the challenging moments of the week, is ultimately what sustains our commitment to the life journeys that matter to us.
