“One of my servants having accidentally broken a glass shade, asked for two other articles of little value, a wine bottle and jam crock, that she might break them, and so prevent the two other accidents. ‥which would otherwise follow”
We have have heard the proverb, and we all have had it happen to us. It always seem that when we are down, when something in our life just isn’t going our way, and just when things look like they can’t get worse, they do.
Maybe you’ve just have just been laid off from work, as if that’s not enough to deal with, you break up with your partner and to put the icing on the cake, your car breaks down while your going for a drive to take your mind off things. If you look back, you can probably think of many instances of such bad days.
So is it really true? Is the universe really programmed so that if you ever have an unfortunate mishap, there is something, someone, somewhere happily obliging to kick you while your down…twice. My take on it is that it’s all in your head. Now I am not saying that your are imagining these mishaps, but rather that any subsequent misfortunes could somehow be linked to the state of your mind and mood following the first mishap.
Take the above losing your job, breakup, breakdown scenario. Losing your job is a very stressful thing to go through, not only does it effect you self-confidence (you have practically been told that your not wanted anymore by someone). It also places a lot of stress financially, for yourself and your relationship.
Now for these of you are in a relationship or have been in one, you can attest to the fact that the cause of countless arguments and fights can be attributed to money. This, coupled with your lowered confidence and self-esteem after the layoff could easily amount to some tension in your relationship, perhaps even as far as a breakup.
How about the car breakdown? Well there could be several possible explanation. It could be that the breakdown is caused by human error, which is more likely to occur due to the state of your mind.
- Maybe your mind is all over the place and you simply forgot to check the water levels and the car overheats.
- Maybe your off mood is impacting your driving behavior, your accelerating faster and braking harder, which just happens to be the last straw for some old, worn-down and near failing part of the car.
Or maybe, the car was just an isolated event and had nothing to do with the previous events. But due to the negative state of mind your in, you associated the bad events together. Even if your car didn’t break down that down, there could of been numerous other small misfortunes that you could of associated with having a terrible day. Maybe you could of burnt your dinner, spill coffee on your computer, walked into a door, misplacing your wallet, the list can go on. This brings me onto my last point.
When your having a bad day, your negative mentality lessens your ability to deal with otherwise simple problems, usually magnifying its significance just because ‘your not in the mood to deal with it’. I bet you have said on more than one occasion ‘now is not a good time’ or ‘I’m having a bad day’.
If your in a bad mood and somebody cuts in line, your unlikely to approach them politely and say excuse me, you’d be more inclined to try and put a fist in their face (not saying that you’d do such a thing, but I’m sure you’d have the urge to in that moment). It works the same with problems, instead of dealing it in a controlled and reasonable way, your more likely to make a mistake or do something you’d later regret.
So next time your having a bad day, take a step back and have a good think about the real causes of your problems, is your state of mind affecting your ability to process problems? Are you driven by your emotions? Is there something you can do, can you look at a situation more positively? But if all else fails, lock your doors and hide under a table for the remainder of the day.
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