Does anyone else out there ever have those string of good incidents in their life, where you feel like everything is just going your way? You get that promotion you've been wanting, you finish that project at home that's been bugging you, and you realize you're surrounded by great family and friends. Life is just good. A week later you might think differently, but right now, everything is great. Funny how that works, huh? Events are really just that, aren't they? They're just things that happen. They're neither good nor bad, it's our perception of them that gives them that attribute. And different perceptions will see things differently. All you have to do is look at politics for an easy example of that. A democrat wins an election the republicans will see this as a bad event, if the republicans win the democrats will see it as a bad event. You can apply that to almost anything in life. Knowing that you could almost strip the significance out of anything if you wanted to, but why would you want to do that? I think it's possible to keep in mind that things that happen to you are just things, and still appreciate the events that you enjoy—the ones that happen the way you want them to. I think keeping that in mind—that nothing is definitively good or bad—can keep a person grounded, stop you from beating yourself up when you don't get that promotion, when you don't finish that project on time, and when you forget that you have any friends at all. And if you forget to keep that in mind, that not getting the things you want (whether those being physical things or abstract things, like a promotion or a finished project) isn't your fault, and that you shouldn't beat yourself up over it, well, in my experience you shouldn't have to wait too long before that next string of "good" incidents comes along.