A large investment with a terrible payout.

Today was a great day and a terrible day.  I'm glad not every day is like that.  It is good for me to try to find good in every day.

Good:
I found $.26 today.
I ate home-made lunch and dinner and both were delicious, not super expensive, and healthier than restaurant food.
I got to talk with a dear friend, my twin, my mom, and a recent Hartwick graduate who had a positive job interview experience this afternoon.
I accomplished a great deal at work that will move us forward.

Ehh...
Last night, I finished the third book in a trilogy of historical fiction that I have been reading for almost three weeks.  This was an investment of time and mental energy.  I really enjoyed reading most of the books (over 1900 pages of reading) and the characters' lives became important to me.  When one spends this much time reading a book, you really become "invested."  Unfortunately the author sort of gave up at the end and chose the easy way out of the book by killing of the two main characters.  I was disappointed that I had invested all of that time to only have that book end poorly.

I also feel like today was a day of bad news for me, my friends, and my boyfriend.  I just heard lots of stuff that wasn't so good from people that I love.  I'm reminded of some of the less fruitful investments that I've made recently.  I won't go into them, because dwelling on negative doesn't help you or me move forward.

It stinks when you have invested time, money, energy, and your heart into something to have it fail.

We have to take those risks and make those investments, though, if we are ever going to reap the rewards.  Not every investment turns out the way we want it to.

May you remember to keep trying even when things don't work out the way you wanted.