The good, the bad, and the ugly

This morning I read something interesting.  A grandchild asked, “Grandma, you’ve lived more than 80 years now.  What changes have you noticed?”  The Grandma’s reply, “People never said, ‘Have a nice day’ until the 1970’s.  We didn’t expect to have a nice day.  We knew it would be hard.  Our life was hard.  Our friends’ lives were hard.  It had always been hard for us, and we figured it would always be hard.  But we were all in it together, and so it was all right.  Then in the ‘70’s everyone started saying, ‘Have a nice day.’  And then people felt gypped if they weren’t having a ‘nice day’ kind of life.” (Divine Signatures, Gerald N. Lund, 79-80)

I’ve often taught my boys that life will be full of the good, the bad, and the ugly ~ and that they could probably expect it in those proportions.  Yet somehow I still often find myself disappointed or disillusioned by that reality, believing that something is wrong when things aren’t mostly “good.”  I can’t get these Grandma’s words out of my head; I think I just had a huge paradigm shift.

Life is ugly sometimes.  Life can be bad.  But life is also good.  We’ve got to learn how to handle the things we don’t particularly like but fall into our laps anyway.  You’re not alone if having a “‘nice day’ kind of life” isn’t your normal.  But, remember, we are all in this together.