Not so bad. It’s not so bad. I tell myself that kind of thing all the time. I think it gets me in trouble. “Not so bad” it lowers my standards. “Not so bad” allows me accept the unacceptable. “Not so bad” is part of what is breaking me.
“Not so bad” allows me to sit far too idle and not take the action I should. I have cultivated this ability to sit in pain and failure, and weather the storm. I can sit there, and just sit, instead of taking whatever massive action is needed to move out of the pain. This is the tough bastard side of “Not so bad.” There is a line between being tough and persistent, and being an idiot that is getting his head kicked in.
In matters of faith and morality, “Not so bad” is one of those tricky tools of the devil. Doing one wrong thing can be justified because it’s not as bad as another thing. To have faith there has to be some acceptance of a concept of sin and morality. There is combat of Truth versus Evil. “Not so bad” can provide a false rationalization that we are winning this battle when in fact we are not. I am doing lots of wrong things, but I’m doing a lot better than other people. “Not so bad.” It is easy to see how that kind of thinking can start to creep in.
“Not so bad” rarely stays not so bad. “Not so bad” has a funny way of growing and becoming a bit more. “Not so bad” is like an invasive species inside the human spirit. Years of putting up with “Not so bad” can do a lot of damage. Using these words is probably a cue that I need to evaluate if things are a little worse than I thought.
“Not so bad” are like magic words for me. I fool myself with them. Your magic words are probably something different. They are still a cue you are fooling yourself, and probably fooling yourself in completely different ways than I. Finding your magic words can just be a step in cutting through the nonsense you tell yourself, unless you’re doing “Not so bad” at that already.