# Things are allowed to be good and bad at the same time

I’ve found it useful to sometimes remind myself that things are allowed to be good _and_ bad at the same time.

Suppose that there was a particular job that I wanted but didn’t get. Afterwards, I find myself thinking:

“Damnit, some of the stuff in that job would have been _so_ cool.”  
“But the commute would have killed me, it wouldn’t have been a good fit for me anyway.”  
“But some of that stuff would have been so cool!”  
“Still, the commute would have killed me.”  
“Yeah but…”

It’s as if my mind is trying to decide whether I should be upset at not getting the job, or happy at having dodged a bullet.

And if I pay close attention to what’s happening in my head, I might notice something.

It’s as if my mind is acting in such a way that only _one_ of these options might be true:

Either some of the stuff in the job would been really cool, _or_ the commute would have killed me. When one consideration is brought up, it’s as if it “cancels” the other.

Now if I were trying to decide whether I want the job or not, then this might make some sense: either the work is cool enough to overwhelm the badness of the commute, _or_ the commute is bad enough to overwhelm the coolness.

But I already know that I didn’t get the job, so I don’t need to make a binary decision. And even if I _did_ need to make a binary decision, realistically it’s not that one of the considerations makes the other completely irrelevant. My mind is trying to persuade me that the job is either all good or all bad, and neither of those assumptions is likely to be a healthy basis for a decision.

So there’s a thing where I… let my mind accept that both the good _and_ the bad can be true at the same time, and that that’s all there is to say about it.

Yes, that stuff _would_ have been really cool. And yes, the commute _would_ have killed me. And there doesn’t _need_ to be an “overall goodness” of the job that would be anything else than just the combination of those two facts.

This can feel a bit like there’s an electrifying zap in my mind, the two facts merging together into an overall judgment, and then there’s nothing more to consider. It doesn’t exactly feel _good_, the way it would have if I’d concluded that I never should have wanted the job anyway. But it also doesn’t feel _bad_, the way it would if I’d concluded that I actually really would have wanted it.

It just is what it is: a job that would’ve had some really cool aspects, where the commute would have killed me.

And then there’s so obviously nothing else to say about it, and I can move on.

—

Other uses of the principle:

My friend Marras [describes finding relief](https://twitter.com/WeftOfSoul/status/1316829264323411973) from chronic pain through a similar dual acceptance: “Yes, my shoulder is in pain. Other parts are not. I can enjoy the other parts while I suffer from the small but upsetting bad aspect. I don’t need to argue for or against either.”

Anders Sandberg [notes that](https://twitter.com/anderssandberg/status/1316812898900082695) this is also a good way for thinking about the state of the world in general: “a lot of things are going really well _and_ a lot of other things are going badly.”