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Have you had any bad days lately?

I have too. Granted, they haven’t been as bad as the day I found out I had cancer, or the day my brother died, or a day of one of my miscarriages, but I’ve had some doozie days lately. One was when the toilet clogged (and worse than that nobody told me for several hours until the odor noticeably wafted into the schoolroom making me wonder if some sort of rodent had made its way into the house. Finally,  the 7year old admitted, “Oops, I forgot to tell you…” ) Then, no sooner had I plunged the plumbing and disinfected the area,  I remembered an appointment that was too late at that point to keep, and later that day I burned dinner and we ran out of milk. That day somehow kept getting worse so that I didn’t clean the kitchen after dinner because I just wanted to get the kids into bed, but I fell asleep by them so I woke up to the mess. Yeah, it was a pretty bad day. And actually, a pretty bad next morning.

Speaking of the next morning,  I woke up late and felt real draggy but I dropped the coffee pot on the ceramic tile floor and it smattered into a thousand pieces and my husband had to leave for business to Canada, (not that there’s anything wrong with Canada other than it’s far from me). Then I had to face, you know, the kitchen. The dishes from the night before. Without coffee.

So, occasionally I start to feel sorry for myself because of the events compounding themselves on any given bad day. This further exacerbates the bad day because feeling sorry for yourself is pretty counterproductive.

I’ll try to get motivated but it’s hard. I might try to exercise or pray my way out of bad days, and while those things do work somewhat in elevating my mood, sometimes what I need most  to do is get a dose of reality and perspective- I need to take the focus off myself and put it onto others- because, you see, sometimes they have bad days too.  Sometimes, in fact, they have really, REALLY bad days, bad days that make mine look golden.  And some of these people, these totally incredible and well-perspectived people, seem to know how to handle anything that life can throw at them with dignity and grace and inspiration.

Below are four short stories about people who are, quite simply, amazing. Some may have had more than just a few “bad days” but  have  transcended cruddy moods and  tragic circumstances and have overcome remarkable odds or done incredibly unselfish and super cool things. Watching these  (even when I still have messes to clean and my own “bad day” circumstances) gives me a new outlook and perspective on my life. I begin to feel grateful for my own life, and begin to think of ways I can incorporate some of the virtues I see in these people and the vignettes of their lives into my own life.

I invite you to watch these few short clips. I hope you’ll be as inspired as I have been.  Seeing them really puts in perspective my own bad days. What do you think?

1.

GIRL VOTED UGLIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD RESPONDS. CLICK HERE. And HERE.

2.

THE LOVE STORY OF IAN AND LARISSA. CLICK HERE. 

3. 

KATIE DAVIS, TWENTY-SOMETHING MOM TO 14 AFRICAN GIRLS CLICK HERE.

HER BLOG IS HERE.

4.

YOUNG MOM STEPHANIE NIELSON SURVIVES A PLANE CRASH TO LIVE AND LOVE. CLICK HERE. STEPHANIE’S BLOG HERE. 

So, I’ll talk to you later. Have a good day. I know that I will now, no matter what happens next.   Oh, and here you go if you want to ponder and wallow just a little bit, but remember when it’s over, to smile 🙂 If these people can, you can too!