Looking for a glimmer of light

The past few years have been hard. Illnesses and deaths in our families. Other stuff too. It’s felt like a lot of the things that really matter haven’t really gone so good for a while.

Work is fine. Actually, work is better than ever. But I don’t really care if I’m honest. It’s not what matters. When things were better, work was worse. I don’t really like this trade so much. Can I do an exchange?

In the case of the flickering bathroom light, assuming the worst only made more work for myself.

I generally try not to get too depressive or doomer-ist about stuff. It doesn’t help. I really try my best to stay positive and look on the bright side of things.

But it’s hard to do. It’s not that I am teetering on the edge of a knife, about to have a breakdown. I don’t frantically oscillate between glee and gloom.

It’s the opposite. I’m actually more steady and resigned. Maybe a little more emotionally distant or even dead, if you want to put it in a negative way. I guess I’ve learned not to get my hopes up that much.

So I don’t. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I guess I feel something like that, but maybe less hoping for the best and more hoping for just okay.

Let go and let God

I’m a religious guy. I believe in God and do my best to take my faith seriously. But it’s hard to have faith when it feels like everything is just kind of screwed up. They say we are supposed to thank God for everything. Not only the good, but bad and good alike. That’s hard to do.

How do we have faith when it feels like it does no good? It’s an age-old question. Countless hearts and minds have struggled with it over the ages. The unseen scales of the world, known only to God.

People who have gone through the most terrible ordeals imaginable, far more tragic and heartbreaking than anything I have ever endured, have written about just this topic. It’s one of the eternal human questions. I’m not sure there’s a quick and easy answer, and if there is, I certainly don’t know it.

Icebreaker mode

I’ve given up on a tidy solution for the time being and have settled on keeping my head down, not getting too worked up either way, and focusing on controlling what I can control. Icebreaker mode.

Even though I said that I don’t really care about work, I obviously do because work feels like the only thing I can control, so I throw everything into that. Is this an unhealthy relationship with work? I don’t know. Maybe. But it keeps me busy and moving forward. We need that.

A lot of life is like a snowball rolling down a hill. Once you are really going, you tend to gain more speed and are less likely to change directions.

We see it in our actions. If you are lazing around all day, it’s hard to get started. People who aren’t working have a hard time getting to work the longer they are without work. If you are cranking full speed first thing in the morning and stay busy all day, you are unstoppable. These things are like self-fulfilling prophecies.

Our attitudes are also like snowballs rolling down a hill. If we are in a positive cycle, we stay on that trajectory unless we suffer some real blows. On the other side of things, once we get in a negative loop, it can be hard to get out and get up. The world feels dark.

Default setting on dim

My expectations have been stuck in a negative loop. When I think of something not related to work, I don’t expect the best. My default setting has been stuck on dim. I didn’t really realize how much this was the case until the other day.

The light fixture in the bathroom has been screwed up. The light has been flickering. It’s had a real horror movie vibe. I replaced the fixture last year when I redid the bathroom. The house is kind of old, and the wiring is kind of weird, and I am not exactly an electrician. I figured I screwed something up.

I shut off the power, took down the fixture, double checked it all, tightened the screws and connections, and even replaced the switch on the wall. Went down to the basement, turned the power back on, and tried the light again. Nothing changed. Still flickering.

I told my wife, “There’s got to be something wrong with the fixture. I’ll get a new one and install it.” I had resigned myself to another Home Depot run until my wife asked, “Did you try the light bulb? Maybe there’s just something wrong with it.”

I had not tried the light bulb. So I did, and it worked. Fixed.

An easy answer

What an idiot. I didn’t even try the stupid light bulb. I thought the answer couldn’t be that simple or easy. That the problem must be worse. That it was the wiring, the fixture, or my unprofessional installation. I’ve been stuck in a negative loop always assuming the worst. I didn’t realize the extent until that moment.

In the case of the flickering bathroom light, assuming the worst only made more work for myself. Taking down the fixture and replacing the switch wasn’t the most terrible thing in the world, but if I had tried the light bulb first, I would have saved myself an hour of annoyance in the dark bathroom fiddling with the wires with a flashlight between my teeth.

Sometimes it feels like nothing is going right. That’s life, I guess. But the truth is it’s almost never as bad as we think. There is always a glimmer if we open our eyes the right way. It can be hard to see the light when things seem dark, but we’ve got to try.

That’s the best I’ve got for now.