When Things Seem Always to go Wrong!

There are a whole bunch of rules and aphorisms that say what the cartoon says. Murphy’s Law says something like, “if anything can go wrong, it will.” There are just tons of related rules and maximums.

• If you drop a slice of toast is will always fall butter side down.

• If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

• If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush.

• Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

These sayings do not reflect my life, but they do feel like they represent your life. It occurred to me that these “glass half empty” type proverbs would not be common, and they would not resonate with so many people if many of us didn’t also identify with these dictums.

It just feels like a big ole dark cloud is following us around and it isn’t true. Well, it isn’t true most of the time. So why I feel this way? Why do so many of us feel this way?

Many troubles come to me, because these troublesome beliefs feel at home inside my head. That is, when a person's mind is full of thoughts of how rotten things are and how bad they are going, so the troubles say, "Hey, here's a place for us with all our friends where we can feel at home!"

Obviously the smart thing to do, the logical solution is to disinvite these negative thoughts. If your brain is full of thoughts about how things are NOT going to be OK, then jump up on a table, pull your hair, and shout: “Get out of my frikin’ head!”

There is another saying that is common among us Charlie Brown types. MISERY LOVES COMPANY. All my “I’m a loser” thoughts invite their pessimistic pals in until there is standing room only inside my head and each and every guest is a miserable ad man selling me on how great and wonderful my own flaws are.

Here is a truism that I need to take to heart: Misery attracts misery; joy attracts optimism. Aphrodite knows that I have tried to follow my own advice. Perhaps I haven’t tried hard enough. My hope is that with diligent practice that I will eventually disinvite the negative thoughts and greet lots of positive thoughts. We’ll see.