It’s Just A Bad Day, Not A Bad Life

Patrick Tomasso

I tell myself over and over it’s just a bad day, a bad week, a bad month but it’s not a bad life. I tell myself that as I’m sitting in traffic, as I’m looking in my bathroom mirror on the verge of tears, as I’m constantly trying to lower my heart rate from the overwhelming stress I’m feeling.

I want so badly to believe things will work out for the best but it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. It feels like a complicated mess and disaster that’s never going to end. It feels like I’m drowning in my own decisions and just letting the stress consume me as I’m sitting on the empty living room floor eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream because I’m feeling sorry for myself.

I just want to give up, part of me just wants to quit because as they say, when it rains it pours, and it’s fucking pouring.

I don’t know when it’ll get better, or how, but I know I have to stay hopeful. I know I have to cling to that hope because without hope there’s nothing. Without hope it doesn’t get better.

I know it’s not a bad life – I know I have people who love me and support me and want me to do well. I know I have a kickass job. I know I have enough money to eat lunch and sit in coffee shops and be able to buy a $2 – $5 coffee every day because the internet in my house is broken. I know there are plenty of good things I have going for me but it’s easy as all hell to let the bad things outweigh the good.

It’s easy to focus on what’s going wrong instead of what’s going right. It’s easy to let the little things that happen wiggle their way into your head and completely destroy you.

It’s so easy to just forget all the good, all the things you have and focus on what’s going wrong. It’s easy to overlook the people who are there for you because you’re frustrated and angry. It’s easy to break down and feel bad for yourself. It’s easy to want to quit and run away. It’s all so easy to do. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to just book a plane ticket back to Thailand and run the fuck away from everything I’m feeling right now in this moment.

But I know that wouldn’t solve anything.

I know it’s not a bad life. I know things will get better. I know life will become lighter and more enjoyable again.

The lows are here to remind us how lucky we are when the highs roll around, they teach us how to be appreciative.

I’m working on focusing on the good in every day and letting the bad things pass. I’m working on letting go of what I can’t control and instead doing all I can to ensure I’m doing the best with the things I can control. I’m working on letting the stress pass through because I know focusing on it hurts more than helps.

It’s not a bad life, just a bad day, I say to myself as I look in the mirror, as I sit in traffic, as I sit on my unfurnished house floor.

It’s not a bad life, just a bad day. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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