…both are true at the same time
During the pandemic, amidst my struggle with sleep, I was physically and mentally exhausted most of the time. Yet, now and again, I would have a really good day. If I could get some sleep, if the weather was good, or if the planets were aligned in some special way, I would feel the burst of incredible joy. Whenever I could, I would write in my journal something like:
“Today was a good day.”
“I felt amazing today for a couple of hours!”
“I had this burst of bliss and joy today and, for a moment, it felt as if everything was good.”
A simple act of jotting down a few good moments helped me tattoo in my mind that even during a total clusterfuck, there was some beauty and joy. My foggy mind, tortured by insomnia couldn’t quite compose sound memories. Thanks to those notes, I remember now that not everything was terrible all the time. While the whole period sucked, there were moments, hours, and days of fun and joy. The reality was not simple and easily characterized. It was a mixed bag with many ingredients.
Back in grad school, I had a colleague who used to say: “It’s the worst,” for every stupid thing. A leaky faucet in the lab? Lukewarm coffee? A test on Friday? It’s the worst! I enjoyed commiserating, but then it started driving me nuts. How is it possible that everything is THE WORST? It can’t be! One thing should be the worst and others stack up as marginally better, right?
I can write here about privilege and catastrophizing and how our words create our vibes and reality. But that’s not the point. Grad school is not a picnic and yes, many experiences suck. Maybe you reach the ever-low point of your life in grad school. Perhaps it was the worst. But, at the same time, hyper-focus on “the worst” makes us miss the good: friendships, deep work, parties, you name it. Academia is cruel and exploitative and many of us had our best and worst moments almost simultaneously on this merry-go-round. We enjoyed and suffered, all at once.
Speaking of grad school, I remember clearly the day in the summer of 2016. I was running an enormous project and it was a hot mess. The work was physically taxing and a logistical nightmare with too many moving parts. I was in charge of organizing several working crews… it was too much and I was struggling.
In the middle of that chaos, my friend Justin came up to me and said:
“These are the worst days of your life.”
When I heard that, I started laughing hysterically. One small part of my heart sank:
“Shit, he is right, these are the worst days of my life.”
A much bigger part of me felt elated:
“Hey, if this is rock bottom, I can only go up from here.”
But more than anything, I felt seen. I was grateful that Justin saw my hard work, struggle, and the mess I was in. I felt that what he said was true. I found it liberating.
Was he right? Were those indeed the worst days of my life? Who the fuck knows. Maybe. I had some simple joys and strong friendships back then I am struggling to find now. Today, I feel a bit more tired, burned out, and fed up with the current state of the world. But I am happier, more confident, and more stable.
I wish I could tell you that I only climbed from that unfortunate day and onward. But the truth is that I hit many more (different) rock bottoms afterward. We expect our lives to unravel linearly. But our lives are spiral and cyclical, we walk the endless array of rolling hills, peaks and valleys, best days, worst days, so-and-so days, and everything in between. Pain and joy are not mutually exclusive. They are coupled. It’s a mess. Such is life.
Nicole Antoinette has a series of posts titled “What’s Working” (example) where she shares good ideas, useful practices, and resources. These posts always make me feel better. It’s not only the focus shift from bad to good that helps. Recognizing that our problems comfortably exist alongside our joys is life-affirming.
The problems will never go away- but maybe you’ll be able to tap into more functional areas of your life, get resources, and alleviate whatever can be alleviated. Leaning on what’s working, helps us address what’s not. We’ll likely never have all resources perfectly aligned and available forever. Something will always be lacking. We can only do what we can with what we have. But we have to see it with clarity even when we’re miserable.
In The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, Alexandra David-Neel Writes:
"... Reality [is] indescribable; we cannot think anything, cannot imagine anything without interpreting and thus destroying its character of Reality. Reality is inexpressible and inconceivable."
There you have it. Our attempts to understand and describe our reality are similar to that of blind men trying to describe an elephant- something like a log, or a wall, or a hose, all of the above and none of the above, something infinitely more complex and indescribable.
We are shocked that these are the worst days and the best days (how can that be possible?), but these days are also fun, sweet, salty, sad, infuriating, long, short, meaningful, mind-numbing, you name it, you won’t be wrong. It’s all true at the same time.
How is this supposed to make you feel? I am not sure. The reality is complicated and our tools to explain and understand it are way too simplistic and rudimentary. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying to comprehend reality, but that don’t need to be obsessed with our judgments and projections. We are filtering the reality, focusing on what we want to focus on, and if we tried a little harder, we could just as easily find the polar opposite of our current view. Contradictions and confusion are completely normal.
Trying to overthink and figure it out is like trying to dig yourself out of the pit. Relaxing into “I don’t know mind” is the only thing that works. Not only “I don’t know” but “I know that I cannot know” mind. Mind is a flawed tool so let it be. Sit in your reality and relax into the idea that you will never ever truly know it.
These are the best days and the worst days and here we are. Isn’t that amazing?
Your turn. How does relaxing into an idea that these are the best and the worst days make you feel? Share your thoughts in the comments.
