Have a great day! Thank you, I get to decide what a “great” day is.
Photo by Tom Morel on Unsplash
People wish each other a “great day”. Really? Thanks!
What does a “great” day feel like or look like? For most of us, a “great’ day is a day made up of only “good” moments. I would argue that this a recipe for unhappiness, since the world will not deliver only good moments. Statically, it will deliver a mixture of good, bad and neutral moments.
So would it not be a better idea to reframe in our mind what a “great day” is? Instead of it being a day with only “good moments”, would it not be more practical to consider a great day being a day with a mixture of “good”, “neutral” and “horrible” moments, and be happy with this new frame?
When we go on a trip, people wish us a “pleasant” trip. Then when we get to the airport, there is a heavy snow storm and flights are cancelled. Instead of the “pleasant” trip, the “unpleasant” shows up. And that’s just the beginning. How dare they don’t make the proper arrangements to accommodate us in a proper 5 star hotel, letting us unattended amid the chaos of the airport, without food, water and information………and the expected “pleasant” trip quickly spirals into “catastrophe”.
The problem with the “great” day that we wished each other in the morning, or “great” and “wonderful” anything, is that it depends on the external circumstances being good and cooperative, and it depends on things happening according to our expectations and attachment to what we think of as good.
As soon as things don’t go the way we had wished or expected, our attachment takes over and dictates that we immediately, in a millisecond, become miserable.
That’s what attachment to the outcome means.
Anger is when “attachment does not get what it wants”. Or we internalise it and get depressed. And we get “upset”, well that’s just a polite way of saying angry.
If attachment makes us suffer so much, then the antidote is to let go of attachment.
When a friend says “have a great day” or “have a wonderful holiday”, don’t get attached to what a “great day” or “wonderful holiday” “ought” to be like.
Let go of all notions of what “great” or “wonderful” means. Let go of the expectations. Let go of attachment to a certain outcome. When we are not so stuck on our attachments, we open the doors of our heart to anything that comes, embrace it and make it “great” and “wonderful” no matter what.
If someone crashes into my car. “Great”, I am still alive and have the use of my eyes, that’s how I can see my hundred thousand car turned into a pile of metal scrap. But that’s ok, I can still see the blue sky and the wonderful colours and forms of the world.
I am blissed out to realise that “only” my car is destroyed. My eyes are still working. My heart is still functioning, and I am still counting all the priceless parts that are functioning perfectly on my body.
If my flight is cancelled, it’s still “wonderful” because I am breathing. When I breathe in, I know I am at peace with myself, and when I breath out I am smiling. Just the location is not as expected. Instead of lying on a beach, I am still lying on the floor at the airport. I can control what counts as a “wonderful holiday”.
Yes, we are having a great day, and a wonderful holiday. Thank you very much.