The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates
Some days are good days – others aren’t. When I look at my good days it’s when many accomplishments take place. Most of the time it doesn’t matter if they are big or small, and most big accomplishments are accompanied by smaller challenges and supporting accomplishments. On the bad days, it’s when more failures and set backs occur than accomplishments.
For example, when I’m trying to code and the development environment crashes. That’s a disappointment. If the computer is continually behaving slowly so that what should only take an hour to do now draws out into three hours … well, that’s the makings of a bad day – trudging through the mud of life (in my case that mud is mostly composed of silicon chips) just trying to accomplish what you set out to do.
So the examination part, after the arduous summit of the thick muddy mountain has been reached, is when we look to see what could have made life better? Better hardware? Cleaner system? Maybe a particular coding style, or adding music to drown out the murmuring fans that normally fill the room.
On a broader scale … if today was good, find out why. Did someone say something great about your work? Did you finish what you set out to do? Did that impossible task actually turn out to be fun and easy? Did you surprise yourself with something you didn’t know you could do?
… and if today was bad examine it for gold. Was the noise driving you crazy? Did you get interrupted each time you started to do something? Did the results of your work turn out sloppy and unexpectedly bad compared to what you expected out of yourself?
After examining your day, look for a way to emphasize the good points and judo-turn those bad points for tomorrow. Yeah, the noise was driving me nuts, but I can get the dog to stop barking if I tire him out on a fast walk… that compliment made me feel great, I should ask my neighbor over for tea tomorrow… etc.
Examining our days help us improve ourselves in steps so small we don’t realize it, just keep your main goal in mind. I’m working on being more cheerful; specifically to remove all complaining, entirely. What’s your goal?