Good Times,Bad Times
June 5, 2020
Our life is like a wave that keeps flowing through time. We all will have our share of ups and downs. Our emotional state represents the amplitude of the wave. When things around us happen in a way aligned to our desires, we are emotionally “high.” When things are not as per our liking or expectations, we are on an emotional “low.”
In our good times, we experience any of these states- Happiness, love, success, confidence, good relationships, good health.
Interestingly, when we encounter any problematic phase in our life, while we may be in the throes of the pain, fear, and uncertainty, there is something else that happens. We seek solace in prayer; we look to connect with our god, in faith, to help us tide over the tough phase. We become more disciplined. We become humble, knowing that we have to ride out the ebb of the bad period. We push ourselves and put in a lot of effort and hard work.
Challenging times bring the best out of us.
The irony is that it is our good times that make us complacent. When we are happy, we tend to slack out. We tend to become lazy and undisciplined. When we are successful, our ego bloats, and we acquire arrogant tendencies. We start taking our good relationships for granted. We become very casual about our health. After all, we are chasing success and a good future.
Paradoxically, our good times bring the not so good out of us.
Now imagine if you could do in the good times what you would typically do in the difficult times, how easy it would be for you to handle the challenging times. The big waves of emotions would naturally give way to the tranquility of a peaceful river.
When we go through a challenging and stressful time in our life, we should come out being better. Taking a software analogy, we should become updated and upgraded.
Bad times bring out the best in us. We should continue to practice those good things we do during difficult times, even when we are experiencing our good times. Faith, humility, gratitude, hard work, and discipline- we should be practicing all these in our good times too. That is when we come out of a difficult period, being better.
Coal under extreme heat and pressure transforms into a diamond. Like coal, tough times should bring the best out of us. We should come out shining, like a diamond.
