You know that quote about sunshine and rain?

The one that goes something like “You have to experience the rain to appreciate the sunshine?”

Yeah. That one.

It’s true.

Weather systems aside, this is fitting in many other arenas of life. It’s the ‘it can only get better’ syndrome, when, at the bottom of the barrel you can only go up. It works both looking forwards as well as backwards, as when you realized how good your previous job was before you got the new one. It works when you realize that in your current state, it can’t get much worse, and anything to come will be better. It even works in relationships.

Let’s use an analogy. You have a pair of shoes — they’re fine. They’re practical, they’re functional, you like them, but they’re not necessarily your favorite. You’re longing for a new pair, a fabulous pair, a pair that just stops your heart and makes you excited about the day when you would have that pair of shoes. You act uncharacteristic — you charge them when you know you shouldn’t be using your credit card, you justify the purchase to yourself, to your friends, even to the shopgirl who, without a doubt, knows they’re a bad idea. But you get them anyway. Wow. What lovely shoes. And you throw the other ones away.

For a while, all you want to do is show off your shoes. YOU. HAVE. NEW. SHOES. And aren’t they fantastic? You, my dear, have made it with those shoes. Bravo.

Then you start wearing them. After all, they’re fantastic, why not show them off? And you notice it — a pesky little blister. Then another one. You are practically killing your sole, and your soul, for these shoes. For this promise of grandeur. For the embodiment of everything that you wanted in a shoe, just, as it seems, not really. Your fabulous shoes don’t seem so fabulous anymore. They’re just, literally and figuratively, rubbing you the wrong way.

Somehow the shoes, the ones that were so unexciting, the ones that you barely gave a second thought to, weren’t so bad. They were fine shoes, they served their purpose, and dammit — you know, you actually LIKED those shoes. Why the hell didn’t you realize it before? You were so jaded by the promise of the new, exciting, flashy and fantastic shoes that you were blind to the first shoes’ fantasticness. Now, all you want is to go back to your tried and true, your formerly unappreciated, your comfortable shoes– immediately.

The moral of the story? Take another look at your shoes. Be glad that you have them. Put some serious thought in before you’re lured by the appeal of the new shoes, because you know? Sometimes they just rub you the wrong way.