A philosophical Thursday.

One of the things you learn writing over 5,000 blog posts over 11.75 years while holding onto a full-time job, is that it's best not to write when you're feeling, shall we say, downtrodden.

Downtrodden-ness, I think, is a feeling everyone gets with some unfortunate regularity. Wordsworth wrote about the world being too much with him. Melville about a "damp, drizzly November in my soul." I can write of crushing schedules, difficult budgets, unrelenting demands, and, I'm afraid, more that is best left unwrit.

Let me just say that even the best of us feel at times that we are taking more punches than we are landing. And what for?

For a paycheck, surely. (Don't leave home without one.) But there are times, to be frank, that a job in advertising is about as rewarding as pissing up a rope. 

I won't go into details here.

I'll just leave it at that.

And say, in an effort to be agile, resilient, responsive and all those other words I despise, that come December 9th, I will be celebrating my 35th year in this sometimes dispiriting and often forlorn profession. It's only natural to feel this way on occasion.

Once many years ago I had a drink after work with my mentor, one of the wisest and kindest people on the face of the earth. The conversation got a little heavy. We started talking of our long-relationships with our therapists.

Finally my mentor said to me, "George, you know what I've learned in 40 years of therapy?"

"No, what?"

"You have good days, and bad days."

This week has been a week of bad days. Really. Bad. Days. 

But you keep coming back. What's the alternative? Pepcid AC mixed with Hendrick's gin?

If past is prologue, days will get better.

Unless of course they don't.

Which could be the subject of another post.