A bad day at the office? Some are worse than others

We’ve all had a bad day at the office; even soldiers have them.

The former soldier was speaking to an interviewer on Armistice Day. He had served in Afghanistan, but had had both his legs blown off by a bomb.

‘It was a bad day at the office,’ he said calmly.

It was his use of the phrase that shocked me, a phrase I use so casually.

His ‘bad day at the office’ had destroyed his life; shot it to pieces. Yet now he’s recovering and making a new life.

He could have stayed forever with the negatives of events, with the ‘what-ifs’…but he has chosen not to. He’s rebuilding his life, he’s hopeful.

Our mind can be a negative place; it can ruminate over small incidents for days.

So sometimes we need to wipe the smear of negativity from our perceptions; for negativity can distort everything.

Perhaps it’s best done at the end of the day, or each morning. We simply note it and then let go of it, like a bird released from our hand.

Beyond the negative clouds there is blue sky; the bad day is not the end of the story.

This remarkable soldier is a living witness to that.