The “Bad Mood” Lifestyle

By Brenda Anderson

We’re having another bad day. Our Internet is down. We discover a past-due credit card bill. The salesclerk rings up our order wrong. A traffic jam makes us late to pick up our child at daycare. Oh, nothing catastrophic occurs, just a series of frustrating delays, minor mishaps and dropped details that, cumulatively, make us crazy. All at once we realize: I’m in a terrible mood, again. In fact, it’s hard to remember the last time I was in a really good mood. What am I doing wrong and what can I do to change it?

You’re not alone. More people than ever before are bogged down in the monotony of chronic bad moods. And it tends to be the little things—rather than, say, a serious injury or the death of a friend—that sets the spiral into motion. Because we have such frantic schedules, there’s more opportunity for things to go wrong and our agitation makes every issue seem more profound.

Bad moods become bad days, which become bad weeks, which become bad months and years. Before we know it, we’re living an unhappy life and probably think this is ‘normal.’ No wonder anti-depressant use is at an all-time high. It’s a shame, because life can and should be wonderful. We can transcend the circumstances that are pulling us down…we only need to learn how.

But aren’t these maddening details—cancelled flights, missed appointments, bad haircuts—just reality? No, our reality depends entirely on our choices: what we choose to observe and how we choose to see it. (Most of us view a cancelled flight as “bad” and that attitude triggers a bad mood—but we could just as easily see it as a chance to meet interesting people in the airport or spend a few fun hours shopping.)

Recent scientific research and discoveries in Quantum Physics, says every single thought we entertain connects us directly to the endless potential inherent in the Quantum Field. The key to true fulfillment is making “thought choices” that yield a high ROE (return on energy)—instead of low-ROE choices that deplete our resources and create more drama in our lives.

Every little choice we make counts. The impact of our choices, no matter how insignificant they may seem, is cumulative. Over time, the results expand. If our choices are negative, negative results expand and beget more negative results. If they’re positive, the converse happens.

This is why we have days when nothing goes right and we descend into a Black Hole. We’re operating in the Fear Zone, and we feel restlessness, anger, frustration, despair or apathy. Other days, everything ‘clicks.’ Doors open, obstacles melt away, golden opportunities materialize. On these days we’re operating in the Power Zone, and it’s a place of willingness, acceptance, optimism and trust.