How to Make Your Own Good Days

Looking back to the day before, I couldn't understand what I had been so worked up about.

Good Days and Bad Days

Everybody loves good days. We are such friendly, upbeat, energetic people when everything is going our way and the sun is shining. We can do no wrong, are willing to help whoever might need assistance, and are shockingly productive.

Bad days are a different story entirely.

Bad days are characterized by overcast, dreary weather and incompetent drivers keeping you from urgent appointments you're already late for. Bad days see us at our worst, making silly mistakes with unfairly severe consequences.

Unfortunately, we are judged by how we act on our bad days.

If you wake up late after a poor night's rest, do you take it out on everyone at work? Do you complain about how little sleep you got last night as an excuse for being disengaged? Or do you grab a cup of coffee and suck it up, wearing a smile and genuinely brushing it off?

We all have bad days. For some people, the good days are still pretty bad. Therefore, everyone has a great excuse to be pissed off almost every day. But if we all lived like that, we'd be pretty miserable.

Sometimes it seems to me that the only times we are really happy is when there are a lack of reasons to be unhappy. It's as if we're just looking for reasons to be miserable and if we can't find any, we resign ourselves to being in good spirits. But then something small happens, like a traffic jam, and we eagerly let it ruin our day.

Make Your Own Happiness

I am a big believer that we are responsible for our own happiness. Too often people look to the external for comfort. But in reality, the things that make us upset make others joyful, so we should be able to determine how we react to anything.

We can choose to make a day good or bad.

Instead of looking for excuses to justify our selfishness and petty frustration, why don't we look for excuses to be happy and generous? Even in the worst of days, there are reasons to smile.

Sometimes this can be pretty ridiculous - as when I take joy in a week of overcast days by thinking about how lush the trees will look - but it all depends on your perspective.

Good spirits need to be maintained and polished. It takes practice to see the good in life when we are so often encouraged to see the lacking and the tragedy. Advertisements constantly remind us of what we don't have that would make us happy (according to the manufacturer) and the news bombards us with a selected lot of negative news. It can be difficult to see our world in a positive light after so much practice doing the opposite.

The best reason I've found to maintain good spirits in the face of misfortune and personal shortcomings is that you just might turn things around. Greeting people with a smile, even when you are downtrodden, could lead to a friendly gesture that picks up your day.

We can choose how to respond to negative events. There is no rule that says if bad things happen, you must feel bad. Many people just laugh it off or decide to worry later.

Right now, I'm pretty beat up, behind on a deadline, and not sleeping well, but I'd rather stay upbeat and at least be in good spirits, even if I'm not in the best state in other areas of my life.

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Fight on, Brave Warriors,

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