We crave the peak experience. We hang onto days where everything feels great, life is exciting, and we’re in “The Zone” like a shipwreck survivor clings to flotsam. We assign the quality of “good” to days like this, and “bad” to days where things don’t go our way, to days when we have sand in our mental shorts, and everything we do turns into a biggeer mess than when we started. Yet where does this striving get us?
If life is one long peak experience, then what becomes a peak? If there are no lows, then how can we tell we’re at a high? How can we treasure the days when we feel cruddy just as much as the days when we feel like we’re floating through life like it’s effortless?
For me, it is realizing that my valleys define my peaks. I can’t always say that I can immediately see the “good” in where I’m at, especially when it seems painful or frustrating. What I can do is turn my awareness to this process of categorizing things as “good” and “bad”, and instead let go of the value judgements to simply be with what is there.
Is this easy? Does it come naturally to me? Of course not … I am human after all. What I can say is that I’m not giving up and that I keep returning to this inquiry. That is what this blog and this community is all about … continuing one step at a time to try again, to acknowledge the glorious imperfection of humanity and embrace this as what helps make us great.
I encourage you to try this for yourself. Does setting aside the concept of a “good” or “bad” day help you gain perspective? Do you work at taking small steps to create something new?
Back in the Saddle 
As Hamlet once said, there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. Every “bad” day can either be bemoaned as a low point or celebrated as another opportunity to grow, a challenge to be overcome. If we approach each setback or wrinkle as simply a chance to learn from our mistakes and prepare for those speed bumps on the road of life, we not only set ourselves up for success the next time the same conditions present themselves to us, but we learn to lead a more positive life overall. Then, even when a new challenge presents itself tomorrow, it’s that much easier to roll with it and turn it into a win.
Well said. We tend to forget this when chasing the peak experience. Thank you for reading and your thoughtful comments.