Bad days are like flossing your teeth. You don’t want to, but you really, really should. Okay, so maybe that’s not a great quote. But bad days really do happen, and if you’re looking to brighten up an otherwise dreary time in your life, look to some quotes that are infinitely better than what I just hashed out. One might just turn you around for the better.
“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do” – Walter Bagehot
You can’t be gay, you can’t eat chocolate for dinner, you can’t turn your hobby into a profession. Screw those people. There truly is something awesome about not only accomplishing (or trying to accomplish) something in life, but after you were told you couldn’t. Proving people wrong is fun.
“You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes” – Lauren Oliver
Life’s all about balance. If we didn’t know what bad felt like, we’d never recognize good when it comes along. If you’re sad right now, just remember how much happier the happy is going to feel when it returns. (And yes, it will return.)
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending”— Carl Bard
People find all sorts of excuses for not going for their dreams, the biggest being that it’s somehow too late. We’re often wrapped up in the belief that things need to start early in our lives, whether it’s learning an instrument, finding love, or starting your own business. There is no “too late.” That’s just an excuse to not try.
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use”—Earl Nightingale
Pretty self-explanatory, but the dude’s got a point. Time is time is time. You’re going to lose it no matter what you do, so might as well make the best of it. It’s a non-renewable resource, after all.
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up” – Mark Twain
Stuck in a rut with your own life? Then take your focus off of it for a while. The best way to do that is to go help others in the world. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, play with dogs at the SPCA, write letters to people you haven’t talked to in a while. These activities work well in two ways: 1) By distracting you from your own problems, and 2) by helping you feel better because, yes, helping others really does have that effect.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sure, anybody can be happy when things are going their way, but what happens when they’re not? If you want to know who you really are, take note of how you respond to bad situations. If you don’t like the person you’re seeing in the mirror, start looking into better coping mechanisms.
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s proper to give yourself time to grieve or be angry about the wrong in your life, but also remember that such time can be used to be happy. When self-pity and sad reflection no longer help the healing process, move on to turning your seconds into things that can lift you up.
“Fall seven times and stand up eight” — Japanese Proverb
This is my favorite version of this concept: failure is ultimately not the act of failing, but the act of staying down once failure has occurred. If you keep getting back up, you simply continue succeeding. Allowing defeat is the only way you’re going to be defeated.
“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving” — Anatole France
Having a bad time in your relationship? These things happen. Just remember that everything in life has to be learned. Everything is a process. We live in an odd sort of society where we believe love is something that should come naturally. Actually, the ability to love comes naturally, but how to express it? That’s something you need to figure out on your own. And it’s okay to mess up while you learn. That’s why it’s called learning.
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps” — Confucius
Many goals in life may appear to be blocked. And it’s probably true. Many people and circumstances can keep you from gaining what you want. But with that being said, if you can’t get in one way, just look for another. They can’t be savvy enough to have thought to block every entrance. Sometimes all you need is to re-evaluate your game plan to see how you can slink past the guards.
