We all have bad days.
We all have bad things happen in the middle of a perfectly good day that turns it into a bad day.
What we need to do is make sure we aren’t the reason a bad day gets worse.
Let me share with you the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a person do in real life.
(I’ve seen a lot worse on YouTube, but this is one I was present for.)
I was sitting outside at Starbucks and a young woman came out with her frozen coffee beverage and discovered that she had a parking ticket.
For those not in Los Angeles, let me explain that parking tickets here are $68.00 or more. It’s brutal.
But this girl saw the ticket on her car, screamed, which made us all stare at her, then…I’m not making this up…threw her frozen coffee beverage at the ticket.
So now, she still had a parking ticket. She did not have the $4.00 drink she had just paid for, which was the reason she got the ticket in the first place, and she had frozen coffee beverage all over her windshield.
It’s easy to laugh at that, but ask yourself, what do I do to make my own bad days worse? Do I pick a fight with my spouse? Snap at my boss? Say something mean to one of my kids? Do I drive like a maniac? Do I eat an entire cheesecake? What’s my “coffee on the windshield?”
And next time you’re having a bad day, stop. Recognize your rotten mood. Change your circumstances if you can, and if you can’t, commit to yourself to get through it without throwing a frozen beverage at a parking ticket.
Your bad day will get a lot better the sooner you stop making it worse.
Great Monday post! I showed someone that he was getting a parking ticket once. Instead of running over to his car, he said, “Now I don’t have to worry about it. I may as well leave it there and get my money’s worth.” The difference between a great day and a lousy one is often attitude. For one, we often don’t mind or notice the minor inconveniences when things are going well. For another, our attitude affects our demeanor, which affects the interactions that we have with others. Thank you for sharing this and have a great Monday. 🙂
I love that response! “Might as well get my money’s worth.” I get about 2-3 tickets a year in LA and I just see it as the city’s way of getting money they desperately need to do things like provide me with police protection and clean streets. One more cost of living in paradise (and it’s made me a much more careful parker).
What a brilliant reminder that we can change our day and thought pattern ourselves. I easily get bogged down with negativity (my husband says I am a glass half empty person) and I struggle to see the good times when it’s raining bad things! Will try to do better….. 🙂 (see smiley face – that’s a start!)
There are days when I want to react like the lady at Starbucks, but instead I vocally display my displeasure (but only when I’m alone), get my misplaced anger under control, then set about to fix whatever went wrong. The venting does seem to help -:)