You wake up late after a bad night’s sleep, the hot water has turned cold, the children are in a bad mood and so are you. Life is struggle and everything is turning out fair great Thank you very much!
We all have them. Nothing we do seems to hide the fact; it’s not our day. We play as hard and fair as any other day, or at least it feels that way, but it won’t make any difference. We must clearly recognize unlucky days and deal with them better by being kind to ourselves.
The following is advice from several hundred years ago from Balthasar Gracian, the Jesuit priest and philosopher:
Recognize unlucky days – “They exist: nothing goes right for them; even if the game is changed, bad luck remains. Two attempts should be enough to know if one is lucky today or not. Everything is in the process of changing, even the mind, and nobody is always wise: chance has something to say, even how to write a good letter. All perfection revolves around time, even beauty has its hours. Even wisdom fails sometimes by doing too much or too little. For a thing to go right you have to do it on your day. That’s why for some everything goes wrong, for others everything goes well, even with less work. They find everything ready, their wit quick, their genius president favorable, their lucky star on the ascendant. At such times one must seize the occasion and not waste the slightest opportunity.But a cunning person will not decide the fate of the day by a single piece of good or bad fortune, because that may be just a lucky fluke and the other just a slight. annoyance “.[1]
It is truly an indescribable and invincible life; one that we cannot completely master. We found gaining balance, at all times, basically impossible. Every dog has his day. Here lies the ability to choose the moment to employ successful strategies. And knowing that one day it may not be ours, we delay our amazing acts for when they can easily find ground and traction. An astute person can see some evidence that today is not going well and then avoid whatever big move he has planned to make; similarly, they might decide to risk it all on a better day.
“Mom always said that life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get.” -Tom Hanks (1994) in Forrest Gump.
After all, from this angle, life is a game of chance. There are so many variables to consider; we know that it is not destiny since there is no such thing. The permeations of these variables alone run into the trillions. We cannot expect to know if we will succeed or fail. It’s about how well we manage our risks, consider our environments, and control our minds. This is where deep thought in prayer is a blessing. What we can cognitively conjure with our minds helps us prepare for success and failure outcomes, and the wide range in between: most outcomes are ‘so-so’ and have both positive and negative attributes. This is the wisdom we need: to consider any possible outcome we may perceive and prepare for it as best we can.
Copyright © 2008, SJ Wickham. All rights reserved throughout the world.
FINAL NOTE:
[1] Baltasar Gracian, The art of worldly wisdomAvailable online at: http://www.balthasargracian.com/?id=139
