This Just Ain’t Good!

“Nope, this just ain’t good!” How many times in our lives have we had those or similar words bouncing around inside our skulls? Yeah, I’ve lost count, too!

There are usually only a few reasons these annoying words show up. Occasionally, it’ll be when we just run smack-dab into an “Oh Sh--!” situation. You know what I mean. Accidents, diseases and a whole bunch of other stuff that seem to have popped up out of nowhere and suddenly we find ourselves up to our neck in swamp water with alligators nipping at our butts.

Now admittedly, some of these situations that seem to pop up out of nowhere are a normal result of the things we personally did or didn’t do. We made our own bed and suddenly we’re forced to either lie in it or start ripping off the sheets. Don’t ya just hate it when that happens?

Other times, an event occurs that honestly is completely beyond our control. These are just unfortunately, part of life. Natural disasters, impulsive or inconsiderate actions by other folks and many diseases fall into this category. Once again, we’re put into a position where we’ll likely need to do something that we never would have wanted to do in the first place. Dang the bad luck…

In both of these types of situations, we’re forced into a position of either having to “act” or suffer the undesirable consequences. Most of us will then put our logic and maybe even our survival instincts to work to do those things we need to do to try to overcome our yucky situation. More often than not, we’ll succeed. Cool!

But what about those situations that quietly sneak up on you? You know the ones I’m talking about. It’s the job that started out to be pretty good and later on down the road has turned into drudgery and uncertainty. The relationship that was once built on caring and compassion which has deteriorated into indifference or abuse. The life path that was once paved and well maintained that has made a gradual transition into a muddy cow path. Now what?

Unfortunately, because the rate of change from “great” to “crappy” was so gradual, we tend to be reasonably well adapted to our present situation even though it may be quite uncomfortable. We may even be resigned to the fact that “this is the way it is” – or feel that we have invested so much time and effort into our circumstances that it just wouldn’t be worthwhile to try to make any changes. We feel trapped – and annoyed by those danged words bouncing back and forth inside our heads. “This just ain’t good!” “This just ain’t good!”

Oh, if only this were one of those sudden “Oh Sh--!” situations. If it were only a matter of immediate urgency. Then I’ll bet we’d do something. We’d take action and work to overcome our emergency. It’d be a matter of survival!

You don’t have to be a psychic to know where I’m going with this, do you? Nah, it’s pretty obvious. An uncomfortable condition – whether it suddenly pops into our lives or develops over a period of several years – is still an uncomfortable condition. Yeah, this is one of those “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck…” well, you know the rest…

And that bring us to our “This Just Ain’t Good” checklist. When we find ourselves in uncomfortable or undesirable situations, we only have two initial choices.

1. Do Nothing – This of course, is the easiest course of action and is absolutely guaranteed to bring about zero change. Things will continue to be as they are right now. (Is this the way you really want to finish out your life…?)

2. Do Something – This is the more difficult of the two choices because it immediately creates two more choices.

A. Take action to change the situation – Change jobs, relationships, life path or whatever condition is causing the discomfort.

B. Take action to change yourself – Your thought processes, the way you view your job, relationships, etc.

That’s it! That’s all the more complicated the initial decision-making process is. And yeah, I know that our “do something” may actually wind up being a combination of modifying both ourselves and our situation. And the actual steps we may be required to take to make those changes may be rather involved and take a bunch of time and effort on our part. That’s OK – if we’re genuinely interested in making a change. That’s just the way life is.

Of course, the basic requirement for making any changes – either within our situation or within ourselves – is “Do Something”. Take action. Set some goals for the changes we want, decide what we need to do to get there and get crankin’.

So if you’re trudging through life with “This just ain’t good!” ringing in your head, use the preceding checklist to decide what you really want to do. And above all, ask yourself the question, “Is this really the way I want the rest of my life to be?”
You’ll know what you should do…