(Bad) Day After (Bad) Day

It's come to my attention (mostly through social media) and the occasional human interaction, that many people succumb to having more bad days than good days. It is to my belief that regardless of what happens throughout a day, if a bad thing occurs, it is automatically heralded as a bad day in its entirety.

Things that can contribute to a bad day may include: a flat tire, your dog peeing on your carpet, you stepping in the pee with your socks on, you not having anymore clean socks to wear, Starbucks getting your order wrong, spilling said wrong order on your shirt, traffic making you late for work, your kid forgetting their homework at home and you have to bring it to them, rain, snow, wind, rude customers, rude drivers, rude... every body is rude, and the famous -having to go to work.

All these things, or some of these things, have happened to many us of throughout our little journey called life. They happen. And they piss people off like no other.

At first I was concerned with the people of planet Earth. I thought to myself "however will we continue on as a human race if all these things bother us so often." Then the 20 second older and more mature version of myself realized "duh, I haven't told anyone how to fix this problem, it's my fault!"

ALAS!

By Webster's definition, I am considered an adult. By many adult's definitions, I'm considered young still. By my definition and most of the people I ask face-to-face, I'm considered awesome.

So here, for you, I have my almost-adult-like-way-of-having-awesome-days-while-still-being-an-adult…kinda.

Rule 1: You look stupid AF (the kids use that, it means as fuq) when you let stupid shit get to you. Like you look so stupid. If you let good things get to you as much as you let stupid shit get to you, you would look like you won the lotto every day. But you don't. You let the parking meter guy get to you. And he wins. And he loves it. And you look stupid as shit. Stop. Doing. That.

Rule 2: Let love win … haha no, that's not Rule 2. Rule 2 is don't let stupid shit get to you! Yep, again. You definitely didn't listen the first time.

Rule 3: The people you want to keep in your life are not the people that welcome you to bitch and moan about everything humanly possible. Those people just encourage the whole looking stupid thing. You want to know who is worth your time? The person that says, stop it, you look stupid AF. And if you think that it's okay to let every little thing bother you, then stop reading this. Because you won't like the rest of what I have to say.

Rule 4: Throughout your "miserable" day, good things will happen. You will have a very hard time recognizing them, because you are so caught up in looking stupid AF, so it's likely you miss them. You are consumed with telling everyone your problem via social media, text messages, emails, etc… that even though your boss just said your hair looks lovely today, you shrug it off because "I don't have time for compliments, this awful coffee I continue to drink is not what I ordered." LET IT GO. See the good.

Rule 5: That nice thing you keep thinking about doing or saying for the past few weeks… here's an idea. Do it. It will make you happy. And not look stupid AF. We are conditioned on this new Earth to think that by doing something nice for someone we will look stupid AF or obsessive or weird and that is just not true because it's so damn rare now. Just do/say what you're thinking. We know someone is likely having a bad day and we can actually help them. So please, be a good human and do it.

Rule 6: If you can't help but always be a miserable human, stay away from the rest of us. Please. ELO said it best with "Don't Bring Me Down" . If you want to get better and I highly suggest you should want that, then yes, give me a call, I'll help. But if you need a bitch session, all day erryday, go away.

Okay, so the rules were mostly for fun. And because I like saying stupid AF. But on a serious note, it's easier to let the bad things get to us than the good things. It's easy to complain and give in to misery. We all do it. And we have all done it. It's not realistic to say that every person should be the bubbly ray of sunshine that goes around kissing people on the forehead. That's definitely not me, that's for sure.

But over the years I have forced myself to learn how to control my attitude and my days. I have taken control of all the situations in my life as best as I can. Which has been a difficult road. Mostly because I'm a worrier. That's why my friends call me Ocho, because I worry eight days a week. (That's not true). Most of my friends refuse to call me Ocho.

I've gotten to the point where I can allow hearing a good song on the radio make my day. Or getting a really good cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Or having a good juggling session or run. Notice I didn't even say great. Because it doesn't always need to be great for it to make me feel great. I let the good play over and over in my head throughout the day. And I think about it while I'm falling asleep. Bad things still happen throughout my day, but I don't let them mess with my beat. And neither should you.

That's my advice for the day. And if you need a little push each day, do what I do and listen to the opening of this song (up until 23 seconds) while imagining yourself walking in slow motion down a crowded street where people are voluntarily moving out of your way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_wzi-kTVOI