Marching
along as a middle-aged man in the sexagenarian decade of my life, every day is
different and isn’t that wonderful? Some
days are better than others but realistically, every day is not a bowl of
cherries.
Sure, I can
fake it that every day is great while flaunting a big cheesy smile but at the
end of the day, I’m stuck with myself and if my deck of cards deals me a spade
for the day, rather than a heart, that’s the way it is and I must accept my hand
while playing my poker game of life.
That’s
not to say, however, that despite a “bad day”, whatever that means to you and
me, that there still isn’t something good to be had from it. It’s just that I must search a little harder
to find its diamond in the rough because it’s buried deep in a pile of misery
and wretchedness.
What gets
me through days like this are to count my blessings because they still exist;
to be grateful for all that I have, humble and acknowledge that it could all be
taken away from me in a heartbeat. The
biblical story of Job is a good read when I’m having a day that feels like Job living
in Uz when his life suddenly turned upside down.
Best to double
down my efforts to avoid, or at least minimize, the time spent in a state of
being described by St. Augustine in his classic The Confessions of St. Augustine where he shares:
“I was
weighed down by a grievous load of wretchedness . . . I still remained to
myself an unhappy place where I could neither be, nor from which I could
escape.”
Pax
Domini sit semper vobiscum
