The Quality of the Day

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

--Henry David Thoreau

We know now that there are many aspects to real life in which our opinion is neither sought nor required. Sometimes, despite our best efforts and positive thinking, health, fortune, and/or peace elude us. But the one thing we do have absolute control over is the quality of our days. Even when we're grief stricken, racked with pain, sick from worry, deeply depressed, squeezed by circumstances - how we greet, meet, and complete each day is our choosing.

We hate to hear this.

Of course, when we're sick, worried, grieving, depressed, or frantic, we're not very interested in the day's quality; we just want the misery to end. But wishing the day away is also a creative choice, even if it's not a deliberate one.

Artists of the everyday excel in elevating the simple to the level of the Sacred. You can use whatever you have on hand - a meal, a conversation, humor, affection - to create comfort and contentment - to put a positive spin, if not on the overall quality of the day, then on critical moments of it. For some time now I have been conducting a top-secret experiment with life, as Thoreau suggests we do. I wanted to see just how much influence I really had on the day's character. So the first words I speak in the morning are: "Thank you for the gift of this wonderful day."

Here are the initial findings, but you will not like them. Nor did I.

• All days are wonderful in direct proportion to the creative energy invested in them. No investment, no return
• Even lousy days possess hidden wonder. Sometimes all you need is a moment of attitude adjustment to shift your perception of an entire afternoon and move forward into a pleasant evening.
• Weather does not seem to affect the experiment. Gray, cold, and rainy days spent in an office are just as suceptible to the warming influence of enthusiasm as are sunny days spent lying in a hammock sipping sangria.
• Days that are expected to be wonderful before they begin turn out to be so much more frequently than days greeted with grumbling
• The results of this experiment suggest that it doesn't matter whether a day is good or bad. What matters is what we do with it.

We knew that.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort and Joy©1995

 

We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power.. the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

--Patrick Henry

It is easy to be negative about what is in our past, to look back with "if only" thinking. If only I had done this. If only I hadn't done that. We could spend hours mulling over what could have happened, or being unhappy about what did happen. Or we could more profitably spend those hours considering who we have become in light of those experiences, accepting the lessons from those times, growing from what we have learned and moving on with our life with new-found determination. Those lessons, after all, have moved us to higher levels of understanding, of living and of loving.

The relationships we entered, stayed in, or ended taught us necessary lessons, too. If we were to do the Sports Center Analysis on those lessons, we would emerge with an altogether different game plan, understanding the painful circumstances with strong insights about who we are and what we want. We would understand that the mistakes we made were necessary for our growth, that the frustrations, failures and stumbling attempts at progress were designed to make us stronger, not to wear us down. As steel is heated slowly and cooled rapidly in order to temper it's strength, so are we, at times, caused to walk through fire and deluged with the cold realities of everyday experience, in order to temper us and make us equal to the task. But, as Patrick Henry said, strength is not enough.

Looking at our experience with negativity gives those problems we have faced an undeserved power over us. It leads to other types of negativity, such as dwelling on what is wrong with other people, our life, our work, our day, our relationships, ourselves, or our actions. We think we are being realistic in doing this, but we are usually trying to annihilate the experience, and attracting negative energy which sabotages and destroys. Negativity has a powerful life of its own. Wishing bad experiences away will not change your life. Agonizing over your powerlessness because of what happened will only weaken your resolve, and clutter up your thinking.

Seeing things as they were, accepting them as real, and taking something positive away from the experience helps us to hook into the positive power that our Plan has for us. Positivity also has a powerful life of its own. Ask yourself what is right about other people, your life, your work, your day, your relationships, yourself, your actions.

Be vigilant when it comes to negative thinking, and recognize it when it comes a-calling. Be actively and creatively involved in the quality of your day, thinking positively of others and yourself. And go bravely into the world, prepared to learn, to grow and to accept.

Put a positive spin on the day. Your life will be transformed by the power and harmony of goodness.

Peace and Light, Michael

email: Michael@N-Spire.com

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