"It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest."
I sat down on the couch thirty minutes ago to settle in for the Formula One Grand Prix from Zandvoort, Netherlands; I'm looking forward to it very much as last week's race was a washout in Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. I'm showered, have coffee (and cookies) beside me and Cleo jumped up on the couch and curled up not too far away. I'm set.
Today was what I call a good-bad day which started off on a good note after seven solid hours of untroubled sleep which never happens to me! Oh the glory. 🙂
Breakfast happened first thing of course, which was good, just Vegemite on toast, and the I set to getting my off-road camper trailer sorted which was also good. Enjoyable. I like being organised so it scratched an itch.
The trailer has just come back from a full service including two new deep-cycle batteries which I upgraded from 60 amp-hour to 80 amp-hour for each; more money but more power for when I'm remote camping. The 160 amp hours of power, together with my solar input, means I'll have no lack of on-board power.
I went through my loadout, [equipment], and cleaned repacked and eliminated as required. Then repacked them into the various compartments and storage boxes on board the camper. From there it was a simple matter of plugging in the on-board charger to 240v (my house) which keeps the batteries on charge and floats them when they reach capacity keeping the trailer ready to deploy at a moments notice. I put the cover on and it was done...All good.
I went around the side of my house to check on my vegetable garden beds and had a chat with some of the plants who all seem to be going well, gaining height, new shoots and a winning attitude. That was good.
Lunch...Yeah, lunch was good. I had a couple sandwiches with triple-smoked ham, roast turkey, lettuce, tomato, cheese, red onion, seeded mustard and mayo. Pretty legit so...Good.
I then took a phone call from a friend of mine who has been struggling through some things lately and is feeling a little low. This is the bad part.
This chap is handicapped, no legs - They're back in Afghanistan somewhere. I help him out here and there with some physical work and we talk a lot and hang out but over the last three weeks we've hardly spoken at all.
We spoke for an hour and I offered to go straight over there but he declined; I was pretty worried about what he was saying.
He's feeling a little despondent and useless which happens from time to time. Today he told me that he'd rather not be around any more. It's a comment that weighs on a person when it's said with so much conviction and it got me worried. We spoke some more and I ended the call after he promised to have coffee with me Thursday coming, the first day after my work finishes up, so I'll have plenty of time with him.
His commitment to the meeting is all I needed; He will be there, no doubt, and so I felt comfortable hanging up the phone. It left me a little bummed out though, the call, and got me thinking into areas that don't lead anywhere pleasant. It was time for a hike.
I hiked about thirty minutes later, which is where I took the main image, and kind of walked out my thoughts. I'm going to have to make a difference to my buddy on Thursday and whilst I've done it before sometimes I feel like the wrong person for him to be talking to. I hiked some more, thought some more and the bad faded; still there but the hike was good.
On returning home I had another chat with someone close to me - We shared some tracks although I stupidly sent one I've sent twice before and caught some flak for it although they made mention of warm potato salad as a legit food option, which is so wrong on every level, and we decided to simply call it even...Which was good.
I've been sitting on the couch with Cleo beside me writing this and thinking about my day.
It was a good-bad day but isn't that how life is?
Like our friend Heraclitus indicates above; life is a collection of contrasting things and it's the contrast between them, the light and dark, that makes the positive aspects much better, memorable, enjoyable and valid. Good wouldn't be as good without bad to compare it against right? I think so anyway. It doesn't mean I want to make the bad aspects happen, just that I accept them for what they are; a part of life to deal with.
I hope y'all have a great Sunday, I'm off to watch the motor racing.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
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