Have A Good Day!

How many times a day do you do you catch yourself directing someone you know or perhaps even a few people you don't, to "Have a good day!"

It's become a reflex, hasn't it... A smile. A wave. And, a friendly, thoughtless edict.

Meaningless.

What does it mean when something becomes meaningless, especially if it is a 'something' you yourself  are guilty of doing countless times a day! I know I just said it a few hours ago when the last person to pick up a vehicle before we closed paid their bill and started toward the door: "Thank You. Have a good day!"

Absurd!

No matter how you determine what a 'normal' day is, at 6:15 in the evening that day is just about over. There certainly isn't a lot of time left for something 'good' to happen. So, why bother suggesting it?

I could understand wishing someone a "good day" if we could all agree on what a good day looked or felt like. But, that hasn't happened... Has it? If it has, I must have missed it and I don't think I did. And, if that's the case, now might be a good time for us to give it a shot. What have we got to lose? Directing someone to have a great day would certainly be a lot more meaningful if everyone could agree on what it really meant to have one.

My son called this morning after he ran in the rain for an hour-and-a-half, and with his best John Wayne, declared that "A day without training is like a day without sunshine, Pilgrim!" 

Does that mean a day with training is a "good day," or at least the start of one? I'll bet it does.

If you are in business, is a good day a profitable day: a day where you have somehow managed to make a little more than you spent? It certainly would be "good day" in this economy! Is it enough to define a "good day" simply as one that hasn't managed to become a bad one? What do you think? I've experienced more than my share of days like that: days where just having nothing bad happen looked and felt pretty damned good by the end of the day! But, is that really enough?

I'll bet most of us have had enough bad days to recognize a good one if we came across one. It would probably have a lot more to do with content than with meaningless activity. It would be filled with more laughter than tears, more satisfaction than frustration. I'm sure there would be a sense of service thrown in for good measure. There would be at least a little appreciation, some recognition and maybe even the sense you actually managed to accomplish something that day floating around as well.

Maybe, that's what we're really trying to say. And, if it is, then we should just say what we mean...

Thank you! And, have a meaningful day! Thank you! And, have a rewarding day! Have a day filled with satisfaction and accomplishment, a day filled with love and respect! Have a day filled with people who make you laugh and smile, people you are genuinely glad to see and be around!

Now, that would be a "great day," wouldn't it! And, if you think about it, I'll bet it was!

THE WORLD BETWIXT AND BETWEEN...

I spend a lot of time in the uncomfortable world that exists between the real and the ideal… a world suspended somewhere between imagination and experience. Perhaps, too much time if I made the choice to honestly assess where I am and what I am doing at any given moment during the day or at night.

That isn’t to say I’m an escapist or that I’m not tethered tightly to the real world. I am definitely not an escapist. I’m not running away from reality. I’m just trying to bend it a little. And, yes, I am tethered to the real world: tightly tethered! But, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about ways that world could be or should be, either. Frankly, I think we should all be doing a lot more of that kind of thinking.

I'm a realist: a pragmatist. I have to be. I work on automobiles and trucks: or, at least, I did for most of my adult life. Now, I run an automotive repair shop... Or, it runs me! I have employees. I have responsibilities. I have kids: grown kids, but still my kids, nevertheless.

I am a senior contributing editor with two deadlines a month. In other words, I have all the real world anyone could want... or, handle. Maybe that's why I am continually drawn to the world of "Could Be" or "Should Be:" a world of theory, a world of supposition and conjecture.

So, you won't hear me complaining a lot. Nor, would I expect anyone to listen if I did. This is where I choose to live.

It is a world of books and magazines and articles and lectures and seminars, written and presented by a host of individuals, most of whom I’m not sure I agree with all the time: hence, the discomfort.

Why do it if it makes you uncomfortable? Well, because… Because, it forces me to think and by thinking I improve the quality of my living: the quality of my life, despite the discomfort. In other words, most of the time it is time well spent and proves more than worth it!

And, the pain? Well, the pain comes from continually trying to move the needle, raise the bar, in my industry: the automotive service industry. The pain comes from continually trying to explain the inexplicable to a motoring public with little patience and less interest; from trying to improve the current reality of shop owners and technicians in a culture that does not appreciate the important role we play in ensuring personal mobility and freedom, and reinforces the fact that I am still here, still alive…

Living between the real and the ideal does something else for me, I guess. It just about guarantees that I will never have to wonder about my existence… The pain is a constant reminder I'm still here, and the other side of that pain; the satisfaction and the joy experienced when you are successful and someone who has read what you have written, listened to what you have said, thought about what you have suggested, joins you in the world betwixt and between because they realize as you do, it is the bridge between the past and the present: a bridge between the present and the future! And, you realize, you finally have a little company!