Recently, I was at a store purchasing some items. As I was wrapping up my transaction at the checkout, I said to the gentleman behind the register, “Have a good day.” His response caught me off guard. He replied with what seemed to be his typical response, “Every day is a good day.” After I took a moment to pause and think about what he said, I agreed with him and said back, “You know what? It is a decision, isn’t it?”
Some of you reading this article right now have some things that are weighing on you. Life feels pretty heavy right now. It doesn’t seem like a very good day to you. But it really is a choice. I know it’s easy for us when we look at other people who are going through some tough stuff, and we just want to say, “C’mon man, just turn it around.” But it’s different when you’re the one in the middle of depression. When you’re the one who’s heard the discouraging news. When you’re the one who can’t cope with what’s being thrown at you. When you’re the one dealing with the tough stuff, it’s a lot more difficult to embrace the “every day is a good day” mantra.
I’m not flippantly trying to tell you to have a good day. I’m telling you to continue to choose to seek to have good days even in the middle of the ups and downs. I was sharing this thought with someone in the office, and they told me about a similar situation that occurred to them at the post office. She explained that she was actually having a pretty good day, but because there was some problem in securing her passport, she remarked to the postal worker that she was having a bad day. He commented back that it seemed more like a bad moment. She thought about it and realized he was right. Until then, everything had been going okay. She was allowing one little incident to ruin her whole day.
How many of us do that? We get into a bad traffic situation driving to work and all of a sudden, we are having a bad day. When that happens, we tend to carry that sentiment with us into work and throughout the rest of the day. Someone says something to us that either hurts or offends us and we allow it to define our mood. This practice is so commonplace that we don’t believe we can change it.
I challenge you today in the middle of all of your family situations to choose to have a good day and see how that might benefit you and the others around you.