The woes of falling back are upon us. For most Americans, setting our clocks back an hour is nonsensical. Social media has recently come alive with utter disgust for five o’clock sunsets. Memes containing quips such as “don’t forget to set your clocks back to misery and despair” and jokes about the onerous task of manually changing the clock on the microwave are the common rhetoric. This widespread aversion leaves little room for people with my point of view.

Personally, I lean more toward the dark side, but not in the sense of Star Wars. Although I kind of liked Darth Vader – he wasn’t all bad, just misunderstood. And how many people do you know who can pull off wearing a helmet and a cape?

Even so, I have always loved winter sunsets. They’ve really grown on me since becoming a landscaper. Dawn arriving at five o’clock provides an early respite from working outdoors. After toiling all spring and summer for very long hours, shorter days are a blessing, to say the least. Once the sun has done its duty, my retreat is swift to the warm, cozy corners of my home.

It’s natural to follow the narrative that dark, gloomy days are a thief of happiness, especially since we associate happy days with blue skies and sunshine. But enjoying the time change is simply a mindset adjustment, as are most things.

Last week, I had a series of what I considered “bad days.” If it could go wrong, it did, and my proverbial dark cloud refused to let in the light. I spent the better part of the week reminding myself and others how bad my days were going. I searched for validation as I played the victim. It seemed that if I could put a label on my bad fortune, I wouldn’t have to try to understand it. Writing off my days and week as bad excused me from taking responsibility for my feelings.

That was until Friday arrived, and I’d had enough. Not to mention that my wife Shannon’s responses to my self-pity began to take the form of one-word sentences. I knew then that my martyrdom had been overplayed.

All the while, I found it hard not to take everything so personally. Many of the occurrences that made up my bad days seemed unprovoked and without warning. I began the week feeling as if I were doing everything right. Then, out of nowhere, adversity chose me.

I often hear people reference karma when good or bad things happen. Some believe that doing good brings good and doing bad brings bad. But I think it’s much larger than that – and not so immediate. Also, what if karma isn’t always at play? I’m of the opinion that sometimes it’s just our turn to have a bad day or week, and typically a little pain likes to come along. And why not? None of us are immune to pain.

In fact, most of us choose to embrace it when it comes around. It’s familiar and requires little understanding. Joy and happiness, on the other hand, tend to require effort. It’s easy to be happy when all is right with our little worlds, but it feels impossible when things are going badly.

At the end of my bad week, I knew deep down that I desperately needed a different approach. I woke up Friday and instantly decided to no longer assign blame to my unhappiness. I started by dismissing karma. I recognized that my bad week stemmed from nothing but a random selection of circumstances. Instantly, I felt better. I accepted that life, although at times full of reason, can also be quite arbitrary. Fate is random; therefore, it shouldn’t be taken so personally.

I chose joy last Friday, and it felt really good. I woke up with joy and ended the day the same way. It sounds ridiculous, but it actually worked. The outlook for my day hung in the balance of my perspective.

Darker afternoons don’t have to be so bad – not if we look for what can make them good. The time change is synonymous with the holidays. It earmarks the beginning of all the magical things we love. Nothing is cozier than a fall sunset after a warm Thanksgiving meal. Before long, Christmas decorations will be brought down from the attic, and holiday lights will glow everywhere, even brighter as the winter sun takes its rest.

Some days will be darker than others, but don’t allow them to dampen your light. It’s okay to embrace the bad as long as we remember to let it go. After all, we can’t spring forward if we never learn how to fall back.

Clay Bowen is a Columbus native who cooked professionally as a chef in fine dining for 12 years and appeared on the third season of Top Chef. He is also a licensed landscape horticulturist. Email him at [email protected].

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