I’ve been thinking about bad days lately.
There’s the garden-variety kind of bad days that happen to all of us: Messing up at work, accidentally losing money, arguing with someone. The kind that’s unpleasant, noticeable, but fixable by the time your head hits the pillow. A glitch in the grand scheme of things.
Then there’s the bad, BAD days. The kind that don’t happen to everyone, or that happen to everyone maybe once or twice in a lifetime. These bad days don’t knock on your door, they bulldoze through your life. The kind that hit you like a ton of bricks and force you to stop and attend to the pain. The kind where even after careful attention, the pain never fully goes away. They’re the type that challenge the very fabric of your being, making you question if the sun will ever shine on you again.
Most bad days fall somewhere in between these two categories.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had some of these in-between bad days. But more importantly, I’ve had a front-row seat to the bad days of a few close friends.
There’s an indescribable, almost paradoxical pain in observing someone you care deeply for go through a struggle. The emotions run deep, yet your hands are tied. You’re a silent observer in a play where you desperately want to rewrite the script. That’s the real kicker. Witnessing the anguish of people you love.
“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”
That’s a Buddhist proverb that I happened to read somewhere in the midst of all this.
When looked it up all the articles I read told me that it’s a popular saying, but I hadn’t heard of it before. I was curious, how do you face pain and NOT suffer? If suffering is like the buffet of bad feelings, why on earth would anyone voluntarily load up their plate? What kind of fridge magnet philosophy was this.
The proverb refers to a story about dealing with suffering more skilfully.
It is said the Buddha once asked a student,
‘If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful? If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?’
He then went on to explain,
‘In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional.’
First arrow
The bad stuff that happens to us: The piece of unfortunate news, the job loss, the diagnosis, the lost opportunity. The first arrow is the reality, the actuality, the ‘ouch’ moment; it’s the visible glitch in the seemingly smooth fabric of our existence.
Second arrow
Our response to the bad thing that happened. The narrative we spin around it that elicits sadness, fear, or anger towards the bad things that happen to us. The subsequent layer of self-blaming, the torrent of “Why always me?”, “I should’ve seen this coming” or “I’ll never recover from this!”
The second arrow shapes our stories, colors our perceptions, and deepens our wounds. Our self-inflicted wounds.
Is there another way?
Sometimes when the really bad things happen, we can see them coming from a long way off. Life’s massive storms always don’t catch us by complete surprise. We see the dark clouds forming on the horizon and we know, deep down, there’s a chance of facing this tornado.
There’s the possibility of this awful, awful thing happening to us. It might not happen. Like ideally it shouldn’t. But it could. It should bypass us though, right? Like, ideally. But nothing is ever ideal. And so the threat lingers.
I’ve pondered, rather excessively, about how I internalize these looming specters of dread compared to people around me, whether it’s my ever-pragmatic husband or my sensible set of friends.
I like to prepare myself for every outcome, which includes the bad ones, and the absolute worst ones. I like to anticipate the pain, sadness, disappointment, and anger from afar and possibly deal with it beforehand, that way when it happens, I can get through it faster. It’s called ✨efficiency✨
On the other hand, there’s the approach that says “What if things work out?” Or the one that holds on to hope and only lets go when hard reality demands it. The outlook that remains neutral or positive until there’s a solid reason not to, like the anticipated bad thing actually happening.
I’m not saying one way is better than the other. The second way has always felt reckless or dangerous to me. I’ve never been able to be a serial optimist in my own life, I can feel that way about others but for myself, it always feels irresponsible.
But with the recent bad days that occurred, I began wondering – are these the only two options we have? Do we either brace for impact or blindfold ourselves with hope? I might be oversimplifying things here; most of us probably waver between these extremes; entertaining private moments of doubt or assurance.
However, I began seeing everyone publicly take camp under one of these outlooks. Some started anticipating the possibility of disappointment and already began coping, talking themselves through the pain, and attempting to look for whatever bright side there was.
The others chose to only consider the possibility of a positive outcome.
So then, which group ends up with more self-inflicted wounds? Are those who brace themselves for bad news more likely to impale themselves on that second arrow, or less likely to because they’ve already suffered-in-advance?
I guess there’s a third option that doesn’t make us choose sides, which is existing in the here and now. The present.
Presence is a powerful thing.
It helps us reflect on the balance between hope and realism without swinging too hard either way. Interestingly, humans are notoriously crappy at predicting their emotional responses to future events.
Psychologist Daniel Gilbert’s work on “affective forecasting” reveals a consistent pattern: We think we know how we’ll feel when certain things happen, but when they do, our feelings are often quite different from our predictions.
Consider major life-positives, like getting your dream job, getting married, or moving to a new city. Before these events occur, we might imagine boundless joy or perhaps anxiety. Yet, when the moment arrives, the rush might be more subdued or mingled with a host of unexpected emotions.
This mismatch is usually even more pronounced in negative situations. The anticipation of pain, loss, or disappointment can be paralyzing, but when faced with the actual circumstance, I’ve found that people display remarkable resilience.
This isn’t to downplay the very real emotions or challenges we face, but rather to emphasize that our predictions are just that — predictions. They’re colored by our biases, past experiences, and innate human tendency to avoid discomfort. Being present allows us to confront situations as they truly are, not as we imagine them to be.
Why the gap tho?
Why is there this disconnect between expected reactions and actual feelings?
One is that we tend to overestimate the intensity and duration of our future emotional reactions. It’s called impact bias. For instance, people predict that they’ll be devastated if a relationship ends, but when it actually does, they recover more quickly than anticipated.
It’s also because people are surprisingly adaptable. I’ve written about how our happiness baseline is usually stable regardless of what happens to us. Whether it’s winning the lottery or experiencing a tragedy, after some time, people tend to return to a relatively stable emotional state.
I’m not saying we should all zen-the-heck-out and just practice mindfulness in the face of all uncertainty. I can’t do that. I’m too caffeinated to sit down with my thoughts. But while predicting our future emotions is an inherently human endeavor, understanding the limitations of such forecasts can help us approach life with a more open heart and mind.
Knowing that we can’t always anticipate how we’ll feel liberates us from the shackles of undue expectations.
It’s not my fault
If the first arrow hits everyone at some point or another, if pain is truly inevitable, how then we do then mitigate or minimize the suffering it causes? I think the best thing you can do is wash your hands off all responsibility and tell yourself this important schoolyard mantra:
It’s not my fault.
Absolve yourself entirely, and do it with compassion.
Reminding yourself that it’s not your fault ironically gives you greater responsibility and accountability. It arms you with the clarity to manage the controllable rather than pandering to incessant self-blame.
An easy way to distinguish the pain caused by the first and second arrow is by asking yourself: “What actually happened?” vs. “What am I telling myself about what happened?”
If what actually happened is that you lost your job, but you’ve been telling yourself that your skillset is irrelevant, or that you’re cursed by fate, or that you’ve done some irreparable damage to your career – you might be adding insult to injury via the second arrow.
This might not magically erase the problem, but it can certainly make it more bearable. Rather than marinating in self-judgment, fear, or anger, it’s more helpful to recognize the impermanent nature of everything, including our hardships. Sometimes it’s the seeking, the reflection, the quest for understanding, and the curiosity itself that matters.
Okay hold on, I’m really not enjoying how self-helpey this essay is getting.
I obviously don’t have a prescribed way of dealing with bad days or those inevitable first arrows. I don’t have a cheat sheet to sidestep life’s second arrows either. More than coping with my own bad days, it’s been humbling to witness the resilience of those I love. Supporting them as they cope, grapple, laugh, cry, and pick themselves up again.
Their experiences, combined with my own, are gentle reminders that while life may not always be predictable or kind, our reactions to it can be. As I become more experienced at dealing with bad days, I’m allowing myself to be surprised by my reactions, to be gentle when my predictions don’t align with reality, and to remember that both pain and joy are transient.
Unfinished Conversations 
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