While good times are nice, they are just. . . nice. They are fickle. You turn around and they’re gone. Plus you don’t really learn a lot from them. They are comfortable; not requiring a lot of stretching or exercising.
And and interesting observation. Good times are not a good measure of good friends. It takes bad times for them to be revealed.
(Have fun! And let me know if answering this question was a good time or a bad time!)
© 2026 – SoulSequel
36 responses to “Which is more of a better friend to you: good times or bad?”
Sorry for the bad grammar in the headline. Where is the edit feature, Admin?
@luftballooneyegouge
That’s impressive.
But I don’t have the heart to tell them that “Good Times” was canceled long ago, and replaced with Dexter and CSI Special Victims Unit.
They are probably better friends for the society in the long run.
@griz
I’m compelled to repeat myself towards the notion that keeping score in this way is a waste. It’s no major revelation that overcoming obstacles in one’s past can help one overcome them in the future.
You might not want to announce to the universe that you prefer bad times…..
@luftballooneyegouge
Any thoughts on what might compel you to believe this? Our very existence is based on our ability to “keep score” of past events and learn from them.
I am more a phenomenon of History than epiphenomenon (an associated symptom, with no power to interact with or affect the phenomenon).
@griz
See,…. now I get this binary something-or-other that I have now in some way stated I’m against record keeping.
I have not.
What I said is, “…keeping score in this way is a waste. It’s no major revelation that overcoming obstacles in one’s past can help one overcome them in the future.”
Quit MeTaPhorically pulling on your stiff, dead, cow’s nipples…..
…..aaaand a trucker might also not want to announce to the digital record that a righteous serial killer is what this world needs for a better society.
@luftballooneyegouge
I’ve heard what you’ve been saying. And the impression from here are that there are things you don’t want to delve into, considering them a waste.
I think of Carl Jung’s assertion that the things we most need to find, will be found where we least want to look for them.
Tracking “how we function” is most certainly not a waste of time. But it can be a very scary thing to delve into; for there be demons there. The scariest demons we can scarcely imagine.
@griz
This is not “Tracking “how we function””. This is you complicating simple things, I assume, to dress things up in costumes of intricacy so you can feel they hold more worth or merit.
My prejudice says this is you, probably trying to comfort, soften, or justify current bad times you’re presently in.
My point is, one doesn’t need to binarily disparage good times to accept that one can gain from bad experiences.
Answering this question has been a bad experience, & I really hardly ever see evidence that you hear what I’ve been saying. You misunderstand & misquote me here & elsewhere all the time.
Let me repeat:
BLAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH
@luftballooneyegouge
Actually I found that the delving deeper, works to simplify the things we so desperately want to make complicated.
Call me strange, but the comparative “bad times” I’m in are welcomed. Welcomed, because I know the process of growth out of them.
And “prejudiced” is a wise choice of words. Kudos.
I’m not out to bust your balls. Rather, to show you there is far more strength to you then you may know.
Note that I have not disparaged good times. That is your prejudice speaking. I’ve simply noted that the bad times are when we learn the most. If we are open to it.
If answering has been a bad experience, it may be one of those uncomfortable doors that it’s time to open.
(And I won’t run away if something nasty comes out. For this is growth. This is dynamic and phenomenal life).
@griz said, “I’m not out to bust your balls. Rather, to show you there is far more strength to you then you may know.”
NO. You are once again, taking already simple things and wrapping some rhetorical toga around them to turn rudimentary common sense into some sort of lofty epiphany & getting very lost on the way.
This whole thing you’ve put forth is disparaging good times for bad.
“Definition of disparage
disparaged; disparaging
transitive verb
1 : to depreciate (see depreciate 1) by indirect means (such as invidious comparison) : speak slightingly about religious beliefs disparaged as superstition
2 : to lower in rank or reputation : degrade”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disparage
This whole topic has been you, being full of shit & loving the smell.
@luftballooneyegouge
What could be so stinky about a personal philosophy that enables one to learn from anything and everything this life may throw at us?
I am NOT disparaging those times when the bluebird of happiness comes and sings a note or two on your window sill before flitting away again.
I’m simply pointing out that when the great thumping duck of delusion manages to land a juicy one on your head, you can learn important things from that too!
Good times.
Good times carry me through the bad. I have this sense that everything is in balance. During a down cycle, I try to feel the balancing out that I know will present itself. A full belief that they will come. I also look back and think of those good times that already existed. Kinda like a “bad” sandwich.
Bad sucks. Good doesn’t.
@spitfire3dc
And do you think the cycle changes back into good when we learn something good, or make a good adjustment?
Good is. . . nice. But there’s no incentive to change, to grow, to adapt. Just the opposite. The incentive is to stop moving ahead and to stay still lest the good time fly away like the fickle friend it is.
@griz We may have to agree to disagree. I think good teaches if you are open to being taught.
It really depends on the person. If you want to learn the hard way, the hard way is always ready to present itself. If you want to learn from something positive; again, you can choose to.
The cycle would change back to good if you are already there. It will extend it…if I understand what you are asking.
@spitfire3dc
What I’m getting at here is a life philosophy that can flourish from all things and not just from certain things.
Good times and experiences are not devoid of possible learning opportunities if one is open to them.
But those unskilled at extracting the little good from them in a conscious and proactive way, tend to just freeze in place when they happen, wishing the good time would never end.
But it always does. So are the bad times just an evil wasted void: a horrible waiting room where you bide your time waiting for good times to call your number?
Or is there more that we can do with the bad times?
The good times figure prominently in my memory; but they tend to inevitably fade over time. My experience has been that the bad times almost always produce more lasting memories and therefore more lasting lessons and wisdom if we can see them and consciously take hold of them.
And that can be hard to do if our mindset is in that horrible waiting room just waiting for our number to be called for the good times.
@griz
Good IS the incentive… to learn and grow. We strive to get to good.
PTSD doesn’t enable one.
@luftballooneyegouge
But if we are at this moment in the good, what incentive is there to strive for the good? Natural reaction is to not change anything less the good fly away.
PTSD is a disease pathology. It is a disabler, not an enabler.
One is enabled when they exercise the strength of Spirit to overcome it.
I personally empathize with anyone in the grips of PTSD. But if they are also in the grips of a therapist telling them that this is their identity, they need to walk out and get the hell out from underneath their toxic rhetoric.
This a very effective way to disempower someone from being truly alive.
(But a good way to ensure a lifetime customer)
@griz
This devil’s advocate game sucks.
When you get your pay, you’re in a relatively ‘good time’.
Do you give up driving a truck and go smoke crack or whatever?
No.
You keep striving to get to the ‘good time’ of payday.
You’re not thinking about yourself experiencing starvation or homelessness in any meaningful way.
You’re thinking about what you’re getting or maintaining, unless your title is worry-wart.
PTSD is what happens when you have a shit-load of ‘bad time(s)’, & your notion that people suffering from PTSD just need to give up therapy,….. could not have dropped from your head with more than 45 seconds of contemplation.
BLAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH
@luftballooneyegouge
The devil’s not the master of of any games that end in strength and growth. I advocate more for these things that the devil cannot stand.
I’m probably different from most, but the payday is not what I live for. It’s more of a nice side-effect. Even when I was making far far less than minimum wage, the payday was not “my lord and master”.
Actually the PTSD comment came after almost a hour of considering the experiences I’ve had with it personally. Both those that built up over time as a “shit-load of bad times” . . . and those that happened in a heartbeat. So I trump your card of “you didn’t give this much thought/you lack the real-life experience for valid comment”.
And I reiterate, if you are in the grips of a therapist who is trying to tell you this is now your “new identity” — your “prime definer” . . . get the HELL out and find another.
This is a vampire tactic.
@griz
See, now you’re putting quotes and attributing something, I never said, to me.
Sorry but your hour of contemplation seems to have been wasted if you think being diagnosed is equatable with being labeled, & the remedy to the suffering is to disregard the label.
@luftballooneyegouge I am an advocate for therapy. Just like all professions I am sure there is good and bad, but I’ve had positive effects from it.
I’ve never understood bad mouthing therapists. I think a lot of them bring tiny bits of awakenings to people.
@Scarlett
The beauty of life is that we can choose to extract are tiny bits of Awakening from everywhere and everyone.
Even those who are convinced to shower negativity upon us. We can learn from them, without being vampirized!
@luftballooneyegouge
No , not disregard the label. Notice that someone or something is trying to attach it to you.
Do you capitulate? Or say, “No. There is far more to me than just a label.”
Labels are “of matter” (See my Harry Potter post). But you are just as much of spirit as of matter.
You get to say when you are just a label and when you are more than that.
@griz
Quit trying to justify your completely erroneous nonsense, with more nonsense.
You’ve tried to equate a medical diagnosis with some sort of predatory notion you’re calling vampirism with zero success, all while wrapping all this bullshit in a label you’re wanting to call wisdom.
Sorry, the only thing you’re bestowing on us is wasted time.
Both are good. Life has both good times and bad times. That’s life. Enjoy the good times and save the memories for times that arn’t so good. Neither good times, nor bad times will last for long. Life is an E-Ticket ride of ups and downs. Both are good.
@ladybarbara
My thought is that life is short. Too short to just be extracting benefit from just half of it and using the other half pining for the first half!
(That’s presuming a 50/50 split of good versus bad which is often not the case)
Iquest for a philosophy that will let me make full use of all of life, not just parts of it.
That’s the wrong question. Seriously.
Bad times can be a time of learning, certainly.
But who wouldn’t trade EVERY SINGLE bad experience, pain, problem, etc. that anyone has ever experienced for a life of ease and being able to do what one wants? BUT this carefree, problem-free life needs to be “out of the box” from the moment of our existence. Seeing that this is impossible (at least in this iteration of existence) anything that causes problems – either of our own making OR problems that others bring to us needs to be cut out without mercy.
To say that bad times are a GOOD thing is like saying it’s a good thing to purposely cut one’s self to experience pain, deliberately throw one’s self off of heights (small enough to survive) to bet cut and bruised up, maybe experience broken bones, place one’s hands into fire until they’re burnt, or expose one’s flesh to extremes in temperature until they get negative side effects from it or expose one’s self to virulent diseases to know what it’s like to be sick. I reject that concept with everything of who i am
@Jear77
The thing is bad times happen whether we purpose for them or not: try to wall off and bubble wrap ourselves or not . Cutting oneself to experience pain is not a valid analogy because you choose to do that.
So why be incapacitated by more than half of life?
There is a huge difference between intentionally causing oneself pain . . . And recognizing that it is a part of life whether we intend purpose or want it to be.
Why give a huge part of life, the ability to defeat us???
@griz the idea you have wrong is “use” / “gain benefit from.” Even from a strictly utilitarian view, there are many things that you might experience but get nothing good from. Look at the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. War. Poverty. Disease. Death.
@Jear77
Actually I was looking at those 4 grisly riders just the other day as part of a response to another thread — forget where right now.
The nature of “bad things” is that they don’t shower good things upon us. One has to dig, get dirty, and wrestle with what they find.
The only other option, is to leave them as things within us that continually weaken us and grind us down — and that require almost constant “maintenance” to keep them locked up behind the ghastly doors we erect to keep us safe . . . from learning from them!
It can be very dastardly work.
Yet by comparison, not nearly so dastardly has the constant burden of angst, nihilism, regret, anxiety, and fear that something might come along to “trigger” one of those ghastly doors and let loose the horror within to consume us.
@griz so you would gladly embrace them? Baka! (Idiot)
It goes back to the curse of interesting times.
Those things are to be delayed, and avoided altogether (tho death can’t be eliminated, we can do our best to postpone it)
@Jear77
Absolutely!
They are going to happen no matter how well we plan, how thick the walls we build, and how much bubble wrap we put around our heads!
Remaining fully conscious, and not shutting down our learning circuits just because things are “bad”, is the best possible strategy for victory in life
@griz part of “embracing” them is to activatly help cause them. Think on that!
@Jear77
We may be each thinking of different definitions of “embracing”.
One can embrace the challenge of a trial — like the grief of a loved one’s death — without ‘becoming death’ — in actuality or analogy. Or an disempowered functionary of death (an epiphenomina of it). Though many people who struggle with death, struggle with this — being disempowered flotsam on the tide.
I would rather be “phenominal” — meaning I embrace the conscious experience of it and in doing so, become fully interactive in my ability to affect it in both myself AND others. At the end of it all — after the messy physiological and mental processes inexorably tied to the grief process — I get to choose what will come of it in my life and in my experience.
(You see, I have been thinking much of such things of late!)
I like what Leonard Cohen had to say about it. “If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll
Be seasick every day.”
@Scarlett
LOL! I like that.
Complaining about the ocean won’t make us immune to being seasick!