Good Days and Bad Days
I’ve noticed that throughout my week, I have good days and bad days. On the good days, I don’t have homework, it’s nice outside, I have a whole night where I don’t have to go anywhere, and I’m generally just feeling pretty good. On the bad days, I have a lot of homework, not a whole lot of time to finish it, and I’m feeling poorly. I’ve noticed that on the days that I feel bad, I focus on that bad feeling a lot more than I focus on any good feelings that I do have.
I’m a person who tends to be happy when I am free of commitments. I don’t like to have a busy night or have any homework to do. I like to stay home with a book, listen to some music on my Ipod, and relax after a long day at school. Sometimes, though, I can’t do that. I have to do my homework as soon as I get home from school, so that I can eat, and then go to Tae Kwon Do, or work at a concession stand. I don’t like feeling busy on those nights. I want to escape having to do all those things. When I think about not being able to read and relax, I’d rather stay at home, but I know that I can’t back out of the things I have scheduled. I also find that, once I get there, I have fun and am glad I went.
A lot of the time, I think about that trapped, panicked feeling. When I’m feeling it, I think about it all the time. I think “Man, I feel really snappy right now”. That only makes it worse. When I’m feeling good, however, I’ve noticed that I don’t take time to acknowledge the good feeling. I don’t ever think “Hey, I’m feeling really great right now!” I’ve been trying to do that more often. Whenever I feel good, I try to recognize it, and sometimes, that makes me even more cheerful.
Accept “Happy” and Enjoy It!
Recognizing that you feel good doesn’t mean that you need to analyze why you are feeling good. You might be really busy that night, but you are just happy that you got all of your homework done (in my case). There’s an old saying, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth”. Don’t try to figure out exactly why you are feeling good. Acknowledge the feeling, and enjoy it.
We can’t feel good all the time. If we did, we wouldn’t know what feeling good was, and we would just expect it. When you feel good, think about it. Enjoy that feeling of freedom and bliss. Take a deep breath, and revel in the feeling. We can’t feel that way all the time, so love it while you have it. And never take happy for granted. See you next week!
“Reprinted from Hagel Publications, Inc. dba as Courier Newspapers”