Ok dudes and dudesses. Time and time again I have stressed the importance of always keeping a keen eye out for positive things that come out of negative situations. Anytime something bad happens, it sucks. You feel sad, angry, sometimes helpless, and sometimes, like there is just no way out. Adversity strikes each and every one of us day in, day out. I’m no different, I get shit on all the time.

Negative situations blow. But the one thing you can always count on, is there WILL be a positive to come from the negative. Sure as shit, you can bank on it just like the sun coming up in the morning. The trick is keeping a watchful eye out for those positives! If you can keep a cool head and an open mind through your times of trial, something good will ALWAYS come up.

Take 1 hour ago in my life as an example. Excited as always for lunch, I doubled the speed limit on my jaunt for my daily McChicken fix. Today I drove exceptionally fast–as I purposefully starved myself this morning, so I would enjoy my McChicken THAT MUCH MORE. McDonalds speaker person, here the fuck I come!

36 minutes after my arrival at the McDonalds drive thru line, I pull up to the 2nd window to finally receive my beloved McChicken. Hungry, weakened, desperate. They call this fast food? It was brutal torture. I could smell my McChicken cooking, but it was just not to be. I was nearly devastated having to wait such incredibly long time.

But then I reasoned with myself and remembered my own advice. “Jim,” I reflected, “this wait time is fucking shitty. Yes, you are hungry, and about to pass out from the lack of McDonald’s chemical matter. Take a couple of deep breaths, and remember… somewhere here lurks a positive. Somewhere, a positive is jumping up and down trying to get my attention.”

Then it happened.

I tearfully watched in wonder as the 2nd window guy shovels a HUGE stack of Splenda in my bag. “Holy shit, that’s easily a dollar or more score!” I thought, as he proceeded to profusely apologize for my agonizing wait time. By the time I get home and run the numbers, I leave McDonalds with $1.40 in Splenda packets. That’s nearly one and a half times the value of the drink itself. Mother fuck yeah!

So you see boys and girls. No matter how shitty the situation, you MUST not lose sight of the fact that something really fucking rad is about to happen. More often than not, you really have to look hard. Sometimes you have to use some imagination. But as long as you make that effort, you can transform the suckiest anything into something much, much better.

So anytime you are feeling blue and feel as though life is not worth living, just give me a call. I’ll calm you down and remind you of one of my age-old life lessons:

life will always make you eat shit. But if you keep some cinnamon in your pocket to sprinkle on it, it becomes more palatable by leaps and bounds.