Life patterns

[L[0ne]R]

Have you ever noticed that when something exceptionally good happens to you - something exceptionally bad follows up? Or the other way around?
Well, don't know about you, but I sure have noticed this pattern occur a lot of times in my life. My life is pretty plain and monotonous - most of the time nothing happens, same thing every day. But there were times when something great happened to me, or even not happened - sometimes I suddenly just was in a really good mood for no particular reason. And then *BAM* - something else happened, and like a pendulum my mood would swing back into the opposite direction.

A few days ago I had a few of those strange occurences of really good mood without any reason, and I already suspected that a storm was brewing. Today - two things happened to me: I had an job interview and it looks like I've finally got a job, finding which was my goal for over a year now. Just a few hours before that, however, one of my cats was diagnosed with mammary cancer and probably has only several months left to live.




Each time something like this happens - I find it harder and harder to believe it's just a coincidence. I'm not gonna go saying it's God or some other higher power at work (though to be honest, I'm starting to seriously consider that possibility), or if there is a logical explanation to it, but you're welcome to post your theories (as long as you don't turn it into another debate about religion).

I'm just curious if you've noticed similar patterns in your lives. If you did - It'd be interesting to hear about them from you.

[Fryer]

Well, it seems like my life just keeps getting better the longer I live, but I also think it's mostly because that's how I want it to be. So when something happens that's bad in any way I always try to do something that makes me happy again; I even try to continue doing that until I feel I'm happier than before.

When you say that something good happens to you directly after something bad has happened, maybe that was actually because you subconsiously tried to make up for that bad thing. If we take the cat vs. interview as an example: You had bad feelings because of what happened to the cat, so you felt you had to get the good feel back in your life, and as a result you performed just a bit better in the job interview. I suppose the same goes for things that happen the other way around, but in a slightly different, more psychological way. Like when it seems that everything is going very well, even almost a bit too well to believe, you feel the need for stuff to go back to normal, so you try to find stuff in your life that's bad.

Sometimes it seems like something that has happened is way too good or bad to just be something you're looking for though, like winning a lottery or getting in a car crash. In that case I would say it's coincidence, but think about it: Even the best or worst things can escape our minds if we're heading in the opposite direction at the time. Example: Would you care if you won the lottery when someone close just died? Maybe, but in that case I'd say you need help! (EDIT: Or you're just very good at getting on with your life. In that case, good for you.) (EDIT AGAIN: When I think about it, it was probably a bad example, but you get the point...)

[Mangled*]

It's definitely God. Trust me. He hates your guts. He told me personally.

[L[0ne]R]

When you say that something good happens to you directly after something bad has happened, maybe that was actually because you subconsiously tried to make up for that bad thing. If we take the cat vs. interview as an example: You had bad feelings because of what happened to the cat, so you felt you had to get the good feel back in your life, and as a result you performed just a bit better in the job interview. I suppose the same goes for things that happen the other way around, but in a slightly different, more psychological way. Like when it seems that everything is going very well, even almost a bit too well to believe, you feel the need for stuff to go back to normal, so you try to find stuff in your life that's bad.

Sometimes it seems like something that has happened is way too good or bad to just be something you're looking for though, like winning a lottery or getting in a car crash. In that case I would say it's coincidence, but think about it: Even the best or worst things can escape our minds if we're heading in the opposite direction at the time. Example: Would you care if you won the lottery when someone close just died? Maybe, but in that case I'd say you need help! (EDIT: Or you're just very good at getting on with your life. In that case, good for you.) (EDIT AGAIN: When I think about it, it was probably a bad example, but you get the point...)

That's a good point I suppose and it might be true for some cases. Maybe I really am just imagining things. For some reason I tend to remember bad things much more often, so I've probably forgotten quite a few of the good ones. :S

Still, a lot of these cases didn't seem like something under my control, something where I could "make myself make up for it". And many of them were something that I definitely didn't have "to look for". That's what I found so strange - those events were something completely out of my normal flow of life and they were not something I could affect much.

But I guess I'll have to observe that some more. :S Maybe I'll even start making a mood chart of some kind, if I'm not lazy.

[Mitak]

The cancer was building up over time so it's not like your cat suddenly got cancer right after the job interview

It had cancer all along, probably for a long time. You just didn't know about it.

[L[0ne]R]

The cancer was building up over time so it's not like your cat suddenly got cancer right after the job interview

It had cancer all along, probably for a long time. You just didn't know about it.

Well, it could've been something else. I knew there was something wrong, but the real shock was when it was actually diagnosed as cancer. If it turned out to be something that can be cured - it wouldn't upset me as much.

[panda_bear_smoking]

i see this pattern every day, not in mood through but events that would typcally cause bad / good moods. i look at it as hubris and nemesis

hubris [hew‐bris] or hybris, the Greek word for ‘insolence’ or ‘affront’, applied to the arrogance or pride of the protagonist in a tragedy in which he or she defies moral laws or the prohibitions of the gods. The protagonist's transgression or hamartia leads eventually to his or her downfall, which may be understood as divine retribution or nemesis. Hubris is commonly translated as ‘overweening (i.e. excessively presumptuous) pride’. In proverbial terms, hubris is thus the pride that comes before a fall.

http://forums.soldat.pl/index.php?topic=41043.0 b17 worth a try lol

[L[0ne]R]

Welp.. it happened again. I was having an unusually nice day today. At work everything went better than usual, I was in a great mood as I was on my way back home where I was hoping to finally get a taste of the long-awaited new DLC for Battlefield 3. Then everything went downhill - I had to wait half an hour for my ride, and when it finally came - I found out that my cat's condition suddenly became a lot worse, and now she really looks like she wants to die.
Just posting this as another example. :/

[smiluu]

It's the complete opposite for me, when bad stuff happens something good follows. I was driving a load of televisions wrapped to boxes with lift cart and at one turn, one of those boxes bumped into a plank of wood and fell on me. I was too slow to catch it with palms, instead I took it with my left fingers. One of my fingers got fractured and two of them dislocated. The television I failed to catch fell on the floor and got chipped from the edge. The jews at the work didn't want to waste their finances to fixing it so they just made me pay and take it home.

Later that day after getting my hand treated I got home, my girl was wearing a latex suit and the television I had to take with me was working fine.

[Shard]

My life has been getting better and better since I finished secondary school. I got the course I wanted in Games Development and it's everything I wanted it to be. Disocvered Bronies, which to me has been a great thing(I know some of you don't particularly like us and MLP, why I'll never know). I turned 18 and have been going out to nightclubs and having a few drinks with friends at home an other places without worrying about anything like parents which is nice. So many brilliant games being released, and my favorite authors are releasing new books. I can't wait to see what 2012 brings.

EDIT: Oh yeah, going to Rammstein in Febuary so that's one thing!

[iDante]

My life just seems to get longer and longer as it goes on, at a rate of about 24 hours per one day that passes. Strange how that works innit?
I'm gonna stick a fork in the outlet here by stating that these "patterns" of good->bad are entirely coincidental, and the fact that they merit a thread is of psychological, not theological, interest. I don't really want to explain myself though; I'm very tired.