Did you ever have a day when “everything” went right. A day when you got up on the right side of the bed. The phone rang all day with calls from good friends instead of spam and telemarketing messages. Everyone just called to chat, and no one had any problems or issues to face. A day when the sun was shining and the weather was perfect. There were no bugs or mosquitoes to be found anyplace in your town. You felt like a million dollars with no aches or pains. No one you knew was going to the doctor for cancer treatments or therapy of any kind. It was as the younger generation like to say “Perfect.”
Now as you are reading this, you are probably thinking “He must be daydreaming, such days do not exist.” Or maybe you are thinking that it is my birthday. I concede the possibility that such days are perhaps rare, but then again should they be any more rare than days where “Everything that could go wrong” did go wrong. Or is it just our perspective which is goofed up. We are more likely to remember the days when our dog disappeared or when the doctor told us to come in and see her as soon as possible than days when our dog reappeared or the doctor called to tell us everything is fine. Cognitive scientists have a term for our propensity to remember the bad more than the good.
“Negativity Bias” is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency to remember negative events and information more vividly and with greater impact than positive or neutral ones. I will not bore you with the reasons for this propensity. I am sure that you recognize that it exists. Thus, if the Yin/Yang of the world is an accurate theory of our existence, we should have at least as many of the Perfect Days as we do the Shitty days.
I ask you to stop reading this blog for a few seconds. I challenge you to see if and when you can remember the last perfect day that you have had. Now I would like for you to describe that day in my comments section before reading the rest of this blog. Think of the happiness you will bring to me as well as the rest of our readers. What if the news carried as much good information as they do bad information? What would your world be like if you only remembered and had perfect days.
At this point, you are probably ready to skewer me as some deranged Pollyanna or Don Quixote. A nutcase who sees everything through rose colored glasses. Someone who is madly optimistic that there is hope for a better world. That Donald Trump will not get a statue on Mount Rushmore and that he and his sycophantic followers will soon disappear in the abyss of forgotten history. I assure you that I go to sleep every night praying to a god that I do not believe exists that these latter events will happen while I am still alive to witness them. Instead, I wake up every morning to more bad news from the front line of the independent media I subscribe to. Thus, either giving me less hope for humanity or making me feel guilty by asking me for more money that I do not have.
See, you thought I was going to write some really optimistic idealistic treatise that would make you feel like your existence meant something and life was worth living. Instead, I refer you to Ecclesiastes from the Bible:
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
However, I refuse to finish this blog on a nihilistic note. I want to finish on a crescendo of hope and faith and happiness. A belief that one idea, one word spoken, one action taken, one step forward can change the course of humanity. We can look back to the past and find untold mistakes and failures that have eclipsed the sunlight of joy for the world. But we can also look forward to a future that we can create because the vast majority of human beings are decent peace-loving equality seeking individuals. The Negativity Bias blinds us to the positive outcomes that prevail every day in our lives. At the end of each day, we seem destined to remember the bad things that happen in the world. This effort is reinforced by a negative biased media which thrives on horror and destruction and pain. I love the words from this song by Peter Paul and Mary, “Light One Candle”
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
And light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker’s time is at hand
Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears
Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
Let anger not tear us apart!
Light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart
Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years! (lasted for so many years!)
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears
We need to counter this tendency for negative bias by reinforcing the positive “perfect” days of our lives. Here is a checklist that ChatGPT created from my query:
It is a printable daily practice checklist to help overcome negative bias. You can use it as a daily or weekly tracker to build habits that shift your mindset toward balance and resilience.
🌞 Daily Practice Checklist: Overcoming Negative Bias
| Practice | Done Today? ✅ | Notes or Reflections |
| 1. Morning Gratitude: List 3 things you’re grateful for. | ☐ | |
| 2. Reframe 1 Negative Thought: Catch a negative thought and reframe it positively. | ☐ | |
| 3. Notice the Good: Write down one positive thing that happened today. | ☐ | |
| 4. Kindness Practice: Do one kind thing for someone else. | ☐ | |
| 5. Mindful Moment: Spend 5+ minutes in meditation or quiet reflection. | ☐ | |
| 6. Move Your Body: Take a walk, stretch, or exercise. | ☐ | |
| 7. Limit Negative Input: Avoid or reduce exposure to toxic media or conversations. | ☐ | |
| 8. Evening Reflection: What went well today? What did you learn? | ☐ |
🗓️ Weekly Reflection (Use at the end of the week)
- What patterns of negative bias did I notice?
- What helped me shift my mindset the most?
- What’s one small thing I want to improve next week?
The End Folks.
Hope you enjoyed this blog. Let me know what your perfect day was.
Somedays when we are on vacation, we do not go anywhere. We stay in a small apartment in some recently found village or town and cook meals, talk, and take walks around the area. No great jaunts to see any “Seven Wonders of the World.” Most of our trips are not cruises so we have few schedules. We get up when we want to. We go out when we want to. We see what we want to, and we come back when we want to. Often the sights that we see along the way are unscheduled and not in any travel guides. We became friends with a Swiss couple at a soccer match we happened to stop and watch one night. We traveled in China to a mountain where we spent the day climbing with a couple whom we met in China. The next morning all of us watched the sun rise over the mountain tops.
relatives cared. There are things you are told that you must see. Ask yourself why? Then make a list of the things that YOU really want to see. I went to a Baptist Revival Meeting once when I was in Birmingham, Alabama. It was a three-hour old-fashioned tent revival meeting complete with an altar call. Being a devout Atheist, I thought I would be lynched when the service was over. Instead, many people came up to Karen and I and after some brief chit chat invited us to a large pot-luck dinner. We declined but were touched at the hospitality and friendliness of the church goers. I wondered if I was Black would I have received the same invitation?
Aging Capriciously 