Without the Lack of Nonmonotony

If life didn't change, we'd all be bored to death. Not just changes like the weather that either technology or a nonchalant attitude can combat and override, but changes in emotion and difficulty of the tasks placed before us. It is because we have hard times that makes life so worth living through.

We all have those hard times that make us want to simply find a corner, close our eyes, and disappear. However fleeting or permanent the emotion, we've all felt it. We've also had moments where we're exploding with happiness. What's the same between those feelings? Well, they're at the opposite ends of the spectrum. We notice those differences because they aren't subtle; drastic changes tend to catch our attention.

You may know someone like my mom, who wants everything to be perfect, and notices every little difference in everything. She made a batch of ookies one time, but the chocolate chips started melting while she mixed the dough, causing them to appear darker after they were baked. My family was half-way through the batch when she pointed out the error. The change was so subtle that we didn't notice, or even care. They were cookies, and they were good.

Few people in life are ever this attentive. If their day was good except for a small comment someone made, they are apt to forget it and say, when asked, "My day was good." If the cookie changes a little, we don't notice. But if the cookie never changes, we're sick and tired of it, bored to death, and we don't appreciate the savory goodness of the happy times we experience. If every day were just like the one before, if it were always easy to be happy, we'd soon start to lose interest.

Enter: the bad day. We've all had them. The alarm clock doesn't go off, that one piece of homework you know you had but never found while you were doing it falls due, a surprise test and a bad grade appear, your friends seem to avoid you, and you wish the day would disappear and never return. There now exists change in life that keeps things interesting. We now have a choice determining whether we will choose to have a good day or choose to let the bad day make us grumpy.

It is the intermittent rough spots, the occasional pot hole, or the hidden speed bump that make life so worth living. They provide challenges, opportunities to learn and grow, and assurance that no day will ever be the same. It is through the difficult times that we really begin to appreciate the cookies in life.