I have taken a couple days off from the blog challenge because weekends are my time for strategizing the big picture view here at Freelance Writers Academy. So let’s get back into the swing of things, shall we?

Today’s Challenge: What’s does your perfect day look like?

The idea behind this challenge is to imagine and write down what a perfect day is for you from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. Who are you spending time with? How are you making money? Where are you living? What activities make up your day? It’s an intriguing and creative exercise.

That’s not going to happen in this post. I have thought long and hard about this question over the weekend. I imagined countless perfect day scenarios and could have picked any one of them really and be happy about it. But the rebel in me kept loudly voicing her own opinion.

I think that dreaming about a perfect day scenario can be advantageous but only to a point. Doing this exercise causes you to consider what is truly most important to you. How you spend your time is a reflection of what value most in life since time is the most precious commodity any human being has. So imagining what a perfect day looks like for you can be great in a “Know Thyself” sort of way. However, there is a dark side (and no, it does not have cookies).

Let me explain. The perfect day exercise naturally veers to an escape from reality mentality. When most people get the opportunity to imagine a “perfect day,” they naturally veer towards a 24-hour period containing nothing that could bring them pain. The supposition is that there are things in life that suck right now. What if there was a day if things didn’t suck? What if there was a day where everything went the way I think it should and there was no pain or struggle?

Human beings are wired for improvement. We judge ourselves and everything around us. We instinctively look for things that aren’t right and desire to make it right. We strive for better. We desire more. We grow and change. We work to make things different.

I’ve spent (cough) years on this planet and have not yet had a perfect day. I don’t expect to have one in the future. This isn’t an Eeyore mentality. I’ve had great days, and I’ve had bad days. Some bad days contained the hardest challenges and the most heart-wrenching pain I’ve ever experienced.

It was exactly those ugly challenges that brought beautiful gems into my life once I made it through. I grew stronger, wiser, better because of these obstacles. I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for the good stuff than I had when times were wonderful.

Painful experiences are life’s gym. We develop bigger muscles, higher endurance, and massive strength. Without harsh training, we atrophy. We lose our ability to maximize our potential. We may not like the training regimen but it does achieve results that are best for us.

When indulging in the fantasy of a perfect day, we fail to realize that perhaps the very things we view as “sucky” today may be the necessary catalyst for future blessing. Is it possible that if we got our “perfect day”, we would rob ourselves of a possible blessing?

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.