its nice to see the opposites.
when having a bad day, or when i come across others having a hard week, i tell them to look forward to the fact that it can usually only get better. the upside.

for when things are going well, i wonder when they will start falling apart. i get nervous when things are going very well, when compliments come, when the water gets too comfortable and my son behaves too well.

in its natural state, things fall apart. batteries die, plants wither and dust settles. it takes a constant amount of work to keep things and ourselves in good form. work requires endless hours to get right, training staff and replacing and refining the sales. relationships take work too, finding new ways to show your care, to reach out and listen to your partner and to be there. our bodies, although tough, require adequate attention and even then it will wither away in time.

it is nice to feel good though after feeling bad. it is also possible to enjoy feeling bad if you know you will eventually feel good. the moments between it all is what it was about, not the destination. when you know that the path was all it was about, not the destination, you can begin to try to enjoy both sides of the spectrum and know that you are always swinging from one side of it to the next. waking up every morning to a birth, and ending each day in death. the happiness that catches your off guard as your mind leaves your conscious from time to time is it.

A great Zen master said as his death poem, just before he died, From the bathtub to the bathtub, I have uttered stuff and nonsense. The bathtub in which the baby is washed at birth, the bathtub in which the corpse is washed before burial, all this time I have said many nonsenses. -Alan Watts

the mountains are green and beautiful from afar, but look down when you stand upon them and you will see dirt. so in the darkness, the moment that it all looks bleak, find the shining light, the smallest speck and wait as it fills up the room only to let it burn out as the day or mood or week comes to an end. it will go out, but it will come back. it always does.