Every once in a while, life throws in a crazy outlier experience. These experiences often feel horrible. This could be an exceptionally bad project or a period in life when everything seems to be dark and depressing.
The good news is that they don’t last too long and the better news is that they are of high value in terms of what they add to our life experience.
Outlier experiences stretch our pre conceived limits. Let’s take a simple example – there are a lot of people who complain about bad commutes. I was among them. Then I spent most of 2012 commuting for 3 hours every day. It wasn’t planned and was just a product of circumstance but was painful nevertheless. As far as commutes go, it was an outlier experience that has given me a lot of perspective. I learnt how to make good use of time over long commutes and am generally thankful for shorter commutes (which is most of the time).
For long term happiness, or the state of happiness instead of the feeling of happiness, we need to hone the ability to put things in perspective. Bad outlier experiences help us do that better than anything else.
So, if you just had a tough week as a part of a tough period, I ask you to take heart. It will pass, and what’s more, it’ll give you some very useful perspective and wisdom if you’re willing to learn from it.
A Learning a Day 