Well... I'm Wearing My Shit-Goggle Again

A gentle reminder that mood is a passing lens, not reality

The other day, I noticed I was wearing my shit-goggles

You know how it goes — you wake up or sit down, and suddenly the world feels off and life looks like complete crap.

For me, it started small — a little impatience here, a touch of irritability there. Then, without warning, the mood tipped into full-on surly mode. My wife, who is usually a joy to be around, suddenly felt like she was asking for trouble just by existing. My normally adorable cat? An annoying little creature out to test my last nerve. Even the clock ticking on the wall sounded like a personal insult. And don’t get me started about the other people in the grocery store.

I was peckish, grumpy, and stuck inside a mental fog that colored everything in ugly shades of “ugh.”

At first, I felt the urge to know why. Why was I like this? What was wrong with me? Why did this mood sneak up on me? Usually, this kind of thinking leads me down a rabbit hole — searching for a cause, trying to fix what isn’t broken, and getting more stuck as a result.

But this time was different.

Instead of fighting or questioning, I simply noticed something important: my shit-goggles were on. No rhyme, no reason. No big external trigger — I was just experiencing a shift in my thinking that made the whole world look like crap.

So, what’s going on with these shit-goggles?

They’re not some external curse or bad luck. They’re inside-out — meaning, the “bad” experience isn’t coming from the world, it’s coming from inside the mind itself.

Imagine your mind tuning into a certain pattern of thinking — usually unhelpful, repetitive, grumbling — that suddenly paints the whole scene in a gloomy, distorted light. Like the brain has switched on the “everything sucks” channel.

But here’s the thing: this channel has no real content. The people around you haven’t actually changed, your pet hasn’t morphed into an annoyance monster, and the day itself isn’t out to get you. It’s the foggy lens created by your thinking.

The mind creates the whole experience — the mood, the irritations, the sense of stuckness — from inside. So no external fix can clear those goggles.

There’s nothing you can do out there to fix what’s going on in here.

Not only that but fighting or trying to figure out what’s wrong tends to add more crap to that already foggy lens.

That day, I saw clearly that this thinking was temporary — a passing mental pattern that would drift away, like a storm cloud moving on.

I also remembered that I’m wired to bounce back — that reset is built in.

And so I just let the shit-goggles be. I didn’t argue with them, didn’t try to fix anything. I focused on some simple tasks I’d been avoiding — not as a trick or technique, but just because I knew the foggy thinking wasn’t where I needed to spend my energy.

And soon enough, the fog lifted, as it always does.

If you’ve ever had your own shit-goggles moment, you know the relief when you notice that they’ve slipped off — and suddenly the world is clear again, the people you love shine through, and the day is full of light.

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So here’s something to ponder:

What if the moods and foggy thinking we get caught in aren’t about the outside world at all?

What if they’re just patterns the mind slips into — temporary distortions, like putting on a pair of shitty sunglasses?

And what if, underneath those lenses, your peace and clarity are already shining, waiting patiently?

Maybe your own shit-goggles will slip on today or tomorrow. Maybe you’ll notice them. Or maybe not.

Either way, the inside-out nature of experience quietly continues, regardless.

Here’s to clearer vision — when the shit-goggles slip off, as they always do.