There’s No Such Thing As Good Days or Bad Days, There’s Just People Who Decide Which One They’ll Have Today

I never understood the fact I was always in control of my own day. I still don’t actually. I mean, in theory I do. Theories don’t matter when it comes to personal happiness though, only practice, positive action and results do.
My personal happiness was always dictated by what was going on around me, who felt what about me and what I had laid out for the day in front of me. In grade school, I remember waking up with a child like passion for life.
Just the thought of seeing the girl I liked or the laughs my friends and I would have was enough to get me out of bed and off to school with an excited vigilance. I looked forward to the day in front of me, I raced towards it willingly.
Unfortunately, this became a mental habit for me upon waking. I’d open my eyes and quickly envision the day I had in front of me. I say unfortunately because the formula only works on days you have something to be positive or excited about — or when you’re six years old and don’t know any better.
When this is your way of waking and you open your eyes as a 30 year old adult who isn’t sure where his next paycheck is coming from, it’s raining, you’re out of cigarettes and the man who laid your Step Father off is now somehow Commander in Chief, things get far more complicated.
Waking up is a lot harder to do, or at least doing so with a positive attitude is. There’s less to be ecstatic about when the same girl you used to wake up excited to see in grade school just died from an overdose two weeks ago.
What brings me to write this, is I woke up angry, down and bothered this morning. Simply because it was easy to. When I identified they were not my feelings but I instead was adopting the feelings of how someone close to me feels about me at the moment, unnecessarily might I add — I decided to try and start my day over.
I poured a new cup of coffee and patiently prayed for a new perspective.
For anyone who rolled their eyes or sighed when they read the word prayed, just understand I identify with no organized religion nor have I ever.
But don’t knock prayer or faith until you try it, its given me a new life.
Some days are going to fucking suck. But they will suck less if I stop telling myself how much they will proverbially blow from the moment I wipe the cold out of my oh so weary eyes.
Another thing — nobody else gets to decide if my day is going to suck. Your perspectives, your priorities, your unhealthy coping habits as well as your defects and shortcomings are not mine.
I have all of my own of the same to deal with, sort through and conquer. I’ve got no space to store yours.
So here is to having a great day, regardless of the circumstances in front of us. It is up to us to make it great, to not be jaded by the negative Nancy’s, the naysayers and the haters.
Here is to throwing the credit card bill you’ve been needlessly stressing over right in the trash, putting on some gangster rap and handling the day you have in front of you.
Here is to smiling and waving at the miserable looking neighbor who never reciprocates, as you leave your house this morning. Here is to bidding the homeless alcoholic who asks you for change every morning a good day as you give them the pocket change you wouldn’t have used anyway.
Doing so feels better than judging them harshly and telling them to “Get a job” — I promise you. You don’t know their story so don’t pretend to just for the sake of pettily saving yourself thirty nine cents.
No amount of money, problems, particular set of circumstances or false sense of righteousness gets to determine whether I have a good or bad day, only I do.

