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 Sometimes we anticipate having a bad day. It is better if we always give the day the benefit of the doubt. That way we can be alert to opportunities, beauty and surprises. We enjoy more of what the day brings.
Take Saturday, April 15, 2006 as an example, which started out, with my very elderly cat horking on the new carpet. Not an auspicious start to any day. Having done our own corporate taxes a month earlier, I wanted time off from thinking about the taxes, and on purpose, I decided to leave our personal taxes until the last minute to give myself the longest possible break. It was a risky move, but the worst that would happen is that we would need to file an extension. Our personal taxes are pretty simple by comparison, and I was prepared to deal with the consequences of my strategy of mindful procrastination to gain what I really wanted, a few weeks of peacefully not thinking about the taxes. To gain this blissful state, I had done some important preparation beforehand. Weeks earlier, when I did the corporate taxes, I had gathered all the necessary statements and instructions in a neatly labeled folder. I had already purchased and installed my copy of TurboTax. I imagine that many people doing their taxes on the Saturday before they were due might have felt somewhat stressed and unnerved by the impending deadline, anticipating a very unpleasant and difficult chore. Most people dislike doing their taxes, and doing them at the last moment is probably a worst case scenario. A foul temper and surliness is not an unexpected reaction to the situation. However, because I had gotten what I had planned for, I woke up on Saturday morning knowing what I was going to do and why. Just at the instant where I could have thought “Ugh, now is the painful, “payback time” for goofing off for a few weeks,” instead, I caught the sound of birds singing outside the open window. Why not give the day the benefit of the doubt? I did not wish to foist my preconceptions on what the day could bring. Why anticipate that the day would be a miserable experience? Why not approach the day with enthusiastic effort? Why not relax and just see what happens? There were indeed bad moments, like when Stuart and I got to within two transactions of being done and the program crashed. All the work we had done up to that point was lost. Interestingly, neither one of us got upset. We knew that we had already figured out that we had all the statements and where the numbers needed to go. It would go much quicker the next time. So, we went out for a what can only be described as a very pleasant, some might think it qualified as romantic, lunch at a restaurant within walking distance with outdoor tables where we could take our beautiful fluffy white Samoyed dog along. We shared a terrific pizza and an ice cream sundae for dessert. Before we left, we met a young man who had lost a leg. He was sitting on one of the benches with his crutches propped up on the fence rail behind him. His wife was sitting across from him on another bench and his young daughter was bopping between the two. There were two older women also sitting on another nearby bench eating ice cream cones. Everyone really enjoyed taking some time to pat the dog as we passed through, and we had a very nice conversation before we walked home. On the way home, Stuart and I stopped to admire three batchelor ducks in the nearby pond cruising for girl ducks, and watched the geese bobbing their tails and feet up as they looked for a bite to eat under the surface of the pond. After we got home we finished the taxes quickly and sent them off in a blaze of electronic glory and efficiency. My elderly cat continued having various discomforts and difficulties all day, so we took her outside at sunset. We let her sniff the breezes, and have a walk around our garden Buddha, to feel the leaves and grass between her kitty toes. Afterward, she lay down near us in a way that was clearly more at ease and comfortable. You could almost hear her silent interspecies “Thank you!” On balance, the day had so much more to offer than the anticipated chore of “doing the taxes at the last minute.” When we bring an attitude of openness and willingness to experience our lives in all their complexity and texture, we benefit not just ourselves, but everyone around us. That’s what a good “bad day” can be. |
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