So, You Had a Bad Day?

This is my theory:

Have you ever noticed... that when you have a bad day, it's often followed by a good day? Or that when you have a good day, it's often followed by a bad day? My theory is that. And this is my reasoning behind it:

When you have a bad day, your standards for what a good day would be like become lower. A good day could have been..... finding $100 on the sidewalk. But then you had a bad day and your standards were lowered. Now a good day could be.... finding a penny in the parking lot. Meaning that you're easier to please after a bad day.

When you have a good day, your standards are lifted, meaning what you expect out of tomorrow can end up being wildly impossible. For example, say you have a good day, you're inner-consciously going to expect more tomorrow. Meaning that yesterday a good day could have been getting some free candy. But after your good day, the next day, you're going to expect to get free cake.

Do you follow?

Now, keep in mind, this is just a theory, and it is one that I will likely not test. Meaning this could be false, it's currently just an educated opinion.

Think about the Becker "rubber band theory". What is the Becker Rubber Band Theory, you ask? Alright, obviously you don't watch enough TV. The Becker Rubber Band Theory is that every time a good thing happens to you the "imaginary" rubber band stretches. And once enough good things happen the rubber band is so stretched that it snaps and one great big terrible thing happens. For example Becker found his really expensive pen, some guy returned his wallet without taking any money from it, and lots of other good things happened. Then, the rubber band snapped, and he got mugged and the mugger stole all of his things including the pen.

All of the above are untested theories. This makes me wonder, how many untested theories are there out there? And what percentage of them are true? And what percentage of those could change the world? But this obviously isn't my point, and is likely to be brought up later!

Back to the point.. Using the above theories, consider the following:

Think about people who's lives are arguably perfect (since no one's life is truly perfect, and if it is then that person should be really worried about when it's going to end, there for ending the perfection). Say this person with an arguably perfect life, you can use common sense to assume that lots of good things have been happening to this person.

Now, using my theory: this person's standards are either really high, or constantly raising, or both, meaning that this person could crack at any possible hand gesture, like a wave "hi" from the wrong person, or even no wave "hi" from a certain person. Meaning that this person with a great life is about to fall on some hard times.

Using the Becker Rubber Band Theory: This person who's life is going well, it's going well, it's going so well, that the rubber band is becoming really stretched, meaning it's going to hit them in the face even harder. Smack! The rubber band breaks. This is kind of like the people that win the lottery. It starts with just the joy of winning. Then the joy of shopping without looking at the price tags. Then the joy of using all of these new things. Then, you get carried away. All you want is more, more, more. Which leads the the snap/smack, you're more willing to do things for your money than your family. Which leads to divorce, and depressed children, and suicide (OK, maybe it doesn't quite go that far, but you get the pattern).

Now, looking at a person who's had just a terrible life! They've got no hope. No matter how hard they tried they failed school, they weren't even liked by anyone, and they're addicted to heroin, and they're homeless. Yeah, they're life sucks, thinking about even this made up character's life, you're appreciating your life more.

Using my theory: This person's expectations for a good day are LOW, LOW, LOW, LOW, LOW (yeah, I like that song, but the song Low, no matter how tempting to dance to, is not the point). Meaning, one, little bitty good thing could happen to this person, and they would smile. They would think twice before purchasing their heroin that next time they ran out. And I'm not talking about homeless people getting into a fist fight over a penny on the corner. I'm talking about, maybe..... a hand gesture (I'm running out of better examples, sorry). Maybe one person smiled and waved. And this lonely, depressed individual smiled and waved back, suddenly feeling better, feeling hope. Feeling that maybe, just maybe, that if they put their mind to it, and gave it their all - 150% - and they thought that they could improve their life. But then, the smiling, happy person leaves, and this sad fellow stops smiling and realizes that he gave his all, and tried his best and this is his life, and he's going to live it, no matter how painful it may be, because he'd rather feel pain than nothing at all (I know, I quote songs often, you should get used to it).

Think about Pay it Forward, it's a movie, it's a choice, it's even a song called the Chain of Love by Clay Walker (or I think it's Clay Walker). You're probably familiar with what pay it forward is, but if you live in a hole, I'll help you out: Pay it forward is when someone does something nice to you, you don't pay the person back up front, you do nice things to other people instead. The cute little boy in the movie had the idea, he thought that if he did nice things to three people and he didn't chose to pay them back, but instead told them to help three others, and so on. And he expected for that to change the world, that eventually everyone would be doing nice things for others. In the song the guy singing is driving to his ratty old home in his ratty car, then he sees this old lady on the side of the road with her Mercedes with a flat tire. He helps her fix it, then tells her to pay it forward. Then, the old lady goes into a diner and leave a $100 tip to her waitress. Then, it turns out that waitress was his wife. And the chain of love returned to him. It's a very nice fantasy world, isn't it?

So, now, when you think about this, and you mix it in with the above theories, the chain of love doesn't seem very powerful because bad things are going to happen anyway. But that's my point of this blog. Bad things are going to happen, and you can take notes and conjure up theories all you want, but life isn't perfect, and bad things are going to happen. But, with the help of these theories, you can't prevent bad things, but you can make bad things not seem as bad. Like for example, using my theory, after that bad day can be, guess what, a good one. Or you could even use my theory to say to yourself, I'm having a good day, I better not get carried away with myself and set my standards too high. Or using the Becker Rubber Band Theory you can say good things have happened and that could end soon, but at least I'll have _________. Like life, or at least you don't have cancer, at least you aren't addicted to anything, etc. Or even with pay it forward, you can know that you are making the world a better place, even though it isn't perfect, and never will be.