When life gives you lemons

Do you have this thing where whenever something bad happens – and it’s a real pain – you somehow have this sense that something really good must be about to follow?

I feel like this is something we’re taught early on. In school, or in Disney movies. In any case, it feels like one of those irrational beliefs, or assumptions, that just seem to take up space in our minds, without any real merit.

And I guess when you’re young that makes sense, right. Because you have very little life experience to go by; to really have a conclusive evidence-based scientific answer that, YES – there is an equal weighting of bad and good occurrences, proportionately balanced throughout life. Or, NO – it’s all pretty random.

It’s one of those “faith” things, that makes us feel better. Helps us make sense of the seemingly senseless.

So, something bad happens. Your car gets totalled, its next destination is the scrap heap. Your hair catches on fire. Or something more enduring, like a chronic illness.

Initially, what tends to happen is that you really begrudge how bad of a time you’re having, how unlucky you were. Perhaps the Universe must hate you.

At some point, especially when this bad situation seems to drag on and on, you reach an inflection point – let’s call it the “faith mindset switch”. This faith mindset suddenly starts to say things like – well, something good must be about to happen, just around the corner.

This “bad thing” becomes almost like a trial that you must endure and go through in order to reach what must surely be nirvana after this ordeal.

The key thing is, this feels like a completely normal and logical thing to believe.

Of course, when you dissect this assumption it becomes less evidently well reasoned.

So, this thing happened – which we can only assume is some form of a punishment, because what is expected to follow seems to be the bilateral resultant reward – for having to endure this unpleasant trial.

If you are religious, this might all make perfect sense.

However, as a spiritual atheist (agnostic? I never really know what to call myself) it makes a lot less sense. In fact, it makes no sense.

And yet, this is the inherent belief I have lived in complete harmony with for many years.

I suppose – the idea – when something bad happens, that there isn’t some immediate relief and rebalancing of the life order as we know it, seems just too  unbearable to contemplate?

Or perhaps it’s just a nice, soothing story we tell ourselves, like a bedtime story, to make the darkness seem less dark.

It’s not immediately clear to me if this is a purely good or bad thing.

It is good because it feels like a warm blanket, snuggly comforting in times of need.

It’s bad if it sets you up for subsequent disappointment.

Then again, it’s all relative.

One person’s misery is another person’s bliss, and vice versa.

So what can we take from all of this?

Me – I like my beliefs to have some semblance to reality – so this might be one assumption I’ll be reviewing more closely. Though, it is nice to have.

To believe that something good is just around the corner. Perhaps that is just a useful mindset to have regardless.

How about you?

Have you ever noticed this, or a related assumption, in your own mind? Or are you more of a nihilist, believing only in the randomness and inherent meaninglessness of life?