Your Experiences

The Best Bad Day of My Life

by Mike
Vancouver, Canada

Although it may sound a little weird, the day I describe below was one of the best days of my life. Ordinarily we think the best days are the ones where everything goes right: people are nice to us, we excel in our various tasks, etc. Unfortunately, life rarely throws us these days.

With awareness, I was able to face what could have been a very unpleasant day and I experienced peace instead of suffering. I find it’s these sorts of days that really highlight the value of awareness.

It was a reasonably busy day. I had classes in the morning and in the afternoon and some assignments to turn in. In my last afternoon class of the day, I had to give a presentation that was the equivalent of my final exam. Then after school I had to quickly get downtown to submit my passport application.

I tried to be as aware as I could throughout the morning and into the afternoon. So instead of worrying about the afternoon in the morning and having butterflies in my stomach, I just took things one moment at a time. I was able to pay attention in my classes and keep relatively calm, even when going into my last class to do my presentation.

I had prepared a lot and I didn’t anticipate many problems, but was I ever mistaken! Throughout my presentation my professor kept criticizing me and making snide remarks about what I was presenting – he had done this to others too, which is partly why I prepared so hard. But with the awareness, instead of being trapped in self-doubt, anxiety or anger, I just kept calm and explained myself as best I could.

It was towards the end of the first part of my presentation that one of my classmates challenged what I’d done, pointing out a problem with what I had presented. So for the next fifteen minutes, I was trying to better explain my work to my classmate as well as the professor. There were many times I could see anger or aggression arising, especially towards that classmate, but each time I noticed this, I just came back to the awareness because it was only in that state that I could explain myself clearly and keep my cool.

When the presentation was over, instead of feeling sorry for myself or feeling ashamed, I just kept trying to be aware. It wasn’t easy to do, but being aware was a lot more pleasant than the alternatives.

Once the class finished, I caught a bus and in 40 minutes arrived at the passport office. I arrived nicely before the office closed and got in line with many others. After a brief wait, one of the security guards very rudely told those towards the back of the line (myself among them) to go home because we wouldn’t be served before closing. It turned out the trip down had been for nothing. There were lots of angry people in line, and within myself many angry thoughts came up along with feelings of being unjustly treated, but I knew it was more important to be in a state of awareness so that’s the state I tried to be in.

After getting home and eating supper I went for an evening walk. At the start of my walk, for some reason, a car full of rowdy people drove by me and started swearing at me and making offensive gestures. This is the moment that surprised me most. As they insulted me, I didn’t feel any anger or fear or negativity whatsoever. I just kept walking and held onto the awareness. All I felt was inner-tranquillity and even compassion for these people in the car; it was almost blissful. They were gone very quickly and I continued my walk, trying to be aware.

I’m rarely able to keep coming back to being aware like this, even on a normal day, despite trying. But this day really showed me how powerful and life-altering the awareness can be when applied. There were so many times I could have reacted badly and brought a lot of unhappiness to myself. Thanks to awareness, however, although the day hadn’t gone according to plan, internally as far as thoughts and feelings go, the day turned out okay – in fact internally it was one of my best days.