Some Bad Days

There’s a company near San Diego called “No Bad Days”. Their logo is a palm tree with the saying and I see it all over cars and stuff. I’m sure you can derive the message – living in San Diego or any place tropical can feel like there are no bad days. That’s total bullshit, but it’s a nice mentality to try to maintain.

You see, the last few days have been bad days. No, it’s 70 degrees and sunny as I type. I am literally staring at a palm tree. But San Diego is not an island and we have plenty of bad days. Monday was especially bad. It started with the news of the shooting out of Vegas which was a totally senseless mass murder at a country concert. And it ended with confirmation that Tom Petty, one of the greatest musicians to ever live, died suddenly. That’s a lot of bad in one day.

But here’s the thing – you need the bad days to remind you that there are going to be more good days. I have this general theory about life and economics and finance and most things – everything mostly trends. We all get up and more or less go do the same shit every day just a little bit more or a little bit better. So the growth trends a little higher. But it’s easy to get complacent during the course of all this trending. You take things for granted or don’t appreciate that most of the days aren’t bad days. And then something happens that jars it all loose. You lose a loved one. You get into an accident. An asshole decides to kill people having fun. All that trending suddenly looks like a crash. It’s really not that different from the way the economy or financial markets work.

But here’s the thing – you need the bad days to remind you that the good days are good. And more importantly, we need the bad days to remind us what’s important and that even though we’re mostly just trending along that all that trending is pretty good in the end. So here’s to some bad days. May they be short lived reminders that there are more good days ahead.