Too Much of a Good Thing. Do I deserve this?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve held a mindset that I believe is not only a toxic mindset but one that many of us, maybe even most of us, share.

That mindset would be:

If things have been going good for too long, something bad is about to happen.

Now, what makes this mindset even worse for me is that I also tend to believe that the longer the good times roll on, the worse the inevitable bad situation will be when it comes.

I’m not going to go into detail about all the bad things that’ve recently happened to me, but I will say this: 2020 for me was a good year.

I know this is very, very controversial given the absolute tragedy many, many people faced this past year. They lost loved ones they had thought would live decades longer. Family businesses shut down, burnt down, and felt as if it was stolen right from them by the hands of the government.

Again, 2020 was a bad, bad year for a lot of people, and I will never dismiss that.

But I’m fortunate enough that this wasn’t the case for me.

I started a new relationship, got a new job, a new car, and got to experience so many new things beyond what I could have imagined.

I made new friends, became closer with my family, and the list goes on.

I have to say it again…I was a fortunate one.

Then comes now. The highs I rode make the lows of now feel that much worse. Relatively speaking, my current low, and the problems I’m facing, these are the problems people dream of only having. So I must say, I do understand my privilege.

But what I’m really trying to say in this post is that because of the great year I had, and how positive it was for me, after this new situation came to pass, I felt as if I deserved it.

I felt I wasn’t able to be this happy, this joyful, and this optimistic about life.

I felt that I wasn’t allowed to be doing so well, while millions if not tens of millions suffer due to an unforeseen pandemic and the consequences that followed.

And this is what I think is such a toxic mentality to have, and again, not only that I hold, but I feel that so many other people hold this same belief.

They feel as if they deserve the bad things that happen to them as if they’re not allowed to be happy in life; not allowed to succeed.

I think what this does is it actually causes people to be afraid to thrive and to be positive.

It makes the people who are riding the highs in life become anxious that “This won’t last forever”.

The big realization here is that, no, it won’t last forever. You will fall, you will stumble, but it’s not because you deserved it. You didn’t cause any sin against the universe that made it strike you down.

No. Life is full of its highs, but also its lows.

Some phases will be longer than others, and you might start to question yourself and wonder, when will this all end?

But if you could take one thing away from this post it would be:

Cherish the happy moments in life.Don’t live in fear.Don’t believe that you’re not allowed to be successful. And at the same time, just because something tragic happens to you, don’t believe you deserved it, because you didn’t.

It’s just life, and life goes on.

Thanks for reading,

cory