How do you separate a good day from a bad day? Most people will use yesterday as a reference for today. Making it a better or a worse day. Are you trending up or down? This seems a fair way of treating it. But it gets you in a tough challenge that it can not continue to go up all the time. It’s realistically impossible.

But to determine good or bad by a comparison is unavoidable. Actually who or what you compare with determines your well being. When you have a ‘challenging day at work’ for example – you come home and do not feel very happy. That will make your day worse then yesterday where you celebrated a victory over a competitor. It’s quite easy to forget all about the successful day or week before, often way to fast. We should celebrate and cherish the good moments more and longer – lock them in our memory. The further days are in the past, the more you only remember the extremes – the ultimate great and deep depressing historic moments. If all you care about is achieving continuous highs you have to life in extremes. This will lead to an interesting life, but more likely to be a short life if the goal is to make every day better then the other.

A Buddhist ritual is to add a white stone in a ‘karma jar’ for every good thought and a black one for every bad thought. If you would do this for every good or bad day – you will think twice before you drop a black stone. Was it really that bad? Compared to what? Yes, worse then yesterday but hey, you have your health, maybe had a good meal, a good laugh at the coffee break and are heading for your soft sheets in a warm shelter. And tomorrow is another day. Okay. A white stone worthy. Nobody wants to look at a jar of black stones and when it fills to fast it’s indeed time to make a change.

So where does ‘the ugly’ come in? It doesn’t, really. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder – as relative as judging a good day from a bad day. The only ugly is people being judgmental over other people’s judgments. Seeking the bad instead of the good.

Have a good day. Or better, have good days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTXljIqxRE