Imagine that you lived the perfect life. Nothing bad ever happened. You were always happy. Everything always went your way.
You probably think that this would be the most amazing life, a life filled with an abundance of joy and fulfillment.
However, in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In this hypothetical life, it would be impossible for you to actually understand all of the good things that are happening to you because there are no bad things.
In our own lives, we can appreciate the good things that have happened to us because we can compare them to all of the bad things that have happened. If there was no bad, there would be nothing to compare all of the good to.
Recently, these lyrics from J.Cole have been on repeat in my head:
Perhaps I was foolish, just like the boy that prays to only see the sun.
Maybe, life happens like tides
One minute you’re low and feelin’ shallow, then all a sudden you rise
Just, ride the wave, I say to myself
The tides of the ocean are constantly changing. Sometimes there are massive waves. Sometimes the water is still. The same goes with life. There are going to be moments where things are going great. Maybe you just got a promotion at your job, or maybe you just completed a personal project that you have been working on for a while. But for all the triumphant moments that you experience, you must realize that there is always another side to the coin. On that side of the coin is all of the negative things that come with life.
Acceptance and appreciation
Accepting that there are two sides of the coin is the first step towards appreciating both sides. The people that are able to realize that whatever they are feeling right now isn’t permanent will be able to appreciate the highs and the lows, knowing that they can’t have one without the other.
From now on, whenever negative things happen in your life, accept the fact that you have to go through this negative experience in order to get to the more pleasant experiences that life has to offer. And when you are going through a positive experience, appreciate it as much as possible because it won’t be for long.
Don’t resent the bad
Most humans are completely obsessed with feeling good all the time. We are built to pursue positive experiences. And when we are not feeling good, we feel that there is something wrong with us or the choices that we have made. Many of us fail to realize that bad things happen in life all of the time, no matter what we do. For better or for worse, this is just life.
“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience,” wrote author Mark Manson.
If you are always hyper-focused on the things that are not going right in your life, then your negative experiences will become your reality. Instead, you must accept the fact that good things are impossible to have without bad things. And on the other hand, if you are always pursuing pleasure and sprinting away from pain, you will never have enough pleasure and always too much pain.
If you are always chasing positive experiences, it is impossible for you to actually become satisfied because the goal post is always moving. This is why it is important for you to make a decision to be happy. A lot of us tell ourselves that we will be happy when ___ happens. But then when ___ happens we realize that there is something else that we don’t have.
This is known as conditional happiness and I am sure that you have all experienced it at some point in your life. Instead of accepting and appreciating all of the good and the bad things that happen in our lives, we tell ourselves that we will be happy tomorrow.
This is why it is so important to realize that negative experiences are actually the path to greater positive experiences. Don’t focus on the negative experience and think that you will feel sad, angry, or depressed forever. Instead choose to be happy right now and accept that without the bad, there is no good.