Sometimes you get the sweet AFTER the sour....or

Ever have one of those days where, as soon as you roll out of bed,  you know this thing about to be totally fucked from the start?

Crick in the neck.............wtf is that?  The dog shit on the carpet.  Great......how'd I forget to get coffee filters...son of a.....where are all of the protein shakers at?........SHIT!

You get into work and it's just a continuation of the shit, literally, that you stepped into from out of your bed.  It's like that scene out of Office Space where he gets memo after memo that his TPS reports are due, and he's told, upon showing grumpiness about said bullshit, that "someone's got a case of the Mondays!"  

These times make it difficult to muster up the energy to create a positive environment.  For you and those unlucky bastards that happen to be around you and get to enjoy your negative energy.  

Everyone around you sucks, shit can't get done on time, everyone sucks, fuck that guy who cut me off in traffic if I ever see him again I'll crush his face into the front of his car, everyone sucks, suck it suck it suck it!!!!  

Have you ever been having one of these, and something positive happens that you can't deny, and the whole face of your day changes?  All of a sudden, you have some life and energy breathed into you.  You're knocking shit out at work with a smile on your face, and suddenly hey, things don't seem so bad.  

Or you fight off that positive energy and spend the rest of the day in that funk you woke up in.  You fall further into the shit sucking abyss and try to make sure you drag as many around you down as well.  

Sometimes we get so stuck on the sour in our life that we start to enjoy the taste of it.  It's better when we have the misery and negativity and the chicken little attitude.  We can get there can't we?  Where you know someone is about to take a shit on you and try to tell you its really candy.  We not only get there, but we can't wait for it to happen.  You know why?  So we can say "TOLD YOU SO!  I TOLD YOU I WOULD GET SHIT ON!  LOOK HOW RIGHT I AM!  HE SAYS ITS CANDY!!!!"

The thing we all need to be cognitive of when life hits the "on" button on a whup ass machine against us, is the little things that can turn that sour into sweet.  A little sweet to get you started can do the same thing that little sour can.  

I'm lucky.  I have a wife who can be tough and tender.  She knows when to tell me when to suck it up and quit being a little bitch, and when I just need some words of encouragement.  Not everyone is so lucky however.  But something will indeed present itself if you are looking for it the same way you are looking for that next bitch slap.  

The funny thing about all of this is that we tend to judge our day based on how it ends.  That same shitty day can end with something really great, and you will say "man what a great day".  Yet 10 hours prior to that you were ready to staple the guy in the cube next to you to death.  And that's a bad way to go.  

Or, you can have an awesome day and get a bit of bad news, and let it ruin that whole day.  You can let it wipe out an entire awesome day in seconds.  We've all had this.  It doesn't seem fair does it?  If you got that news at 7 a.m. then had the awesome day, you'd say "this was an awesome day."  Now you're saying how the day sucked ass.  Negativity is winning.

Training is no different.  

Just this past week, three shitty workouts in a row.  All in a row.  After my deadlift session turned out to be crap, I unloaded the bar and went home.  Did I have a sour attitude?  Nope.  I said to myself "I am a little overtrained right now, I need to rest for a few days."  I knew that since I was good for a triple with 605 just the previous week when I felt bad, that if 605 was heavy tonight, it wasn't about strength, but about rest.  So I am taking the next 4-5 days off and will have another 3 bad ass weeks of training before I run off to Chicago.  

It's a hard thing to be positive all the time, and personally I don't know if that's healthy either.  To me, everything in life has a good and bad scale.  It's up to you to weigh it.

For example, I was offered a job many years ago by a company and the pay was a nice increase over what I was making.  I loved where I was working, however I was slightly underpaid and the benefits weren't the greatest.  So I was swooned into this new position with a window and a raise and a bonus and all sorts of shit.  First day on the job I knew I screwed up.  I hated it right out of the gate.  Totally corporate America in every way, rat race, clock watching manager assholes who did not respect you or your life.  

I learned from that, that anytime something bigger and better is promised to you, that you better come to terms right then and there that you are about to take a bigger bite of a bullshit sandwich.  That's a fact.  You don't get all of these perks and phat money and a window without having a larger slice of the BS served to you hot and steamy style.  

So you have to weigh what it is that makes you happy.  For me, it's about working with people I like and doing a job I believe has merit.  I gave that up for money and benefits.  If I were someone who valued money and benefits more than a great work environment and projects I liked, then it'd be a good trade.  I'm not.

Again, training is no different.  More time in the gym also means a loss somewhere else.  No matter how you slice it.  Less time could mean a loss somewhere too.  Or a gain.  Again, you have to weigh these things and how they effect your and your happiness, you and your progress.

The main thing to remember is that 99% of the things we worry about, never come to fruition.  I have to tell myself that a lot, but it's one of the most true statements I've ever heard about life.  

So the next time you wake up to some dog shit and no coffee filters, remember to look for the sweets that day too, and not focus too hard on the sours.