Some Days The Bear Gets You

The underrated philosopher Commander William T. Riker once said, “Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you.”

Do you ever have days where it feels like there is some advanced consciousness working against you from the moment you roll out of bed?

I call them karma days. They’re days where you use up some of that bad karma you’ve stored up and the universe proves it has a sense of humor.

These days used to make me angry. Now, I find them kind of funny. I’ve learned they are necessary to the journey and they can be quite comical, if you allow it.

Overnight the the antibiotic I’m on for a bout of sinusitis began manifesting a rather unpleasant side effect.

This morning I went to log in to two systems at work. Both normally log you in automatically. Neither did today. I had to scramble around to find little-used passwords.

Then I ran some errands. I had big rig truck decide to stop right in front of me and conduct a three-point turn on a two lane road. I arrived at the bank ATM to find two vehicles in front of me. The first finished their business. The one right in front of me pulled up. The guy got out. Placed a couple cones between our vehicles and opened up the machine to work on it. These two incidents happened within five minutes.

I laughed, pulled around him to go find another bank, and noted to myself it’s one of those karma days. It seems I have about 10 of them a year. The lengths animate and inanimate things will go to to make things just a little more challenging than normal is amazing.

These days seem relatively immune to the power of our minds or our will. I think, instead, they are meant to teach us the valuable lessons of patience, compassion for the struggles of others, and the value in laughing at ourselves and not taking this big game as seriously as we sometimes do.

I’ve learned to ride the wave of insanity these days create and come out on the other side smiling.

I know I’m not alone in having these days. I know they can create stress, fear, and anger. I swear, though, if you’ll take a breath and a step back, you’ll find the humor and the value in them.

After all, the flower only grows when it receives the sunshine and the rain. So do we.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are awesome!

Ray