A Good Life Still Has Hard Days

I think we sometimes use a pretty strange definition of a good day. A good day is when things go my way. People respond the way I hoped they would. Plans work out. I feel good. Nothing particularly difficult happens. A bad day is when they do not.

But if that is the standard, we are giving circumstances an enormous amount of control over how we evaluate our lives.

Some of the most important days are uncomfortable. A conversation does not go the way we hoped. Someone disappoints us. We get bad news. We feel anxious, frustrated, tired, angry, lonely, or uncertain. Something we wanted does not happen. Something we did not want happens anyway.

None of that automatically means something is wrong.

Difficulty is part of a human life. So are disappointment, uncertainty, conflict, loss, frustration, and discomfort. If we require those things to disappear before we can consider our lives good, we may spend a tremendous amount of time believing something is broken simply because life is behaving like life.

The same pattern can show up in recovery. We may unconsciously evaluate recovery by how comfortable we feel. If I am peaceful, confident, connected, and things are going well, recovery must be working. If I am anxious, angry, disappointed, craving, overwhelmed, or struggling in a relationship, maybe something is wrong.

But recovery was never supposed to guarantee that we would stop having difficult days. It is supposed to help us become better able to live through them.

The important question is not always whether I liked what happened. Sometimes the more useful question is what I did with what happened. Did I tell the truth when it would have been easier not to? Did I tolerate disappointment without immediately reaching for relief? Did I set the boundary I needed to set? Did I allow someone else to be unhappy without abandoning myself? Did I ask for help? Did I act according to my values even though I was uncomfortable? Did I make a mistake, recognize it, and take responsibility?

A day can hurt and still contain growth. A conversation can go badly and still reveal something important. We can be disappointed and still behave with integrity. We can be afraid and still act courageously. We can have a difficult day and still be building a good life.

Maybe that is a better way to measure things. Not simply, “Did today go the way I wanted?” but, “Did I handle today in a way I respect?”

That question puts something important back in our hands. We may not control what the day brings us. We have much more influence over who we practice becoming in response to it.

Reflection: Think about a recent day you labeled as bad. Was the entire day actually bad, or did something happen that you did not want? How might you evaluate that day differently if the question became, “How did I show up?”