Today, I thought I had a bad day.

You know how I always say that I am so happy to know who I am and what life means to me? How happy I am to be able to take a step back and see the big picture because of my faith? And how, because of this, I am ready and able to face any challenges life throws my way? I say it so much that I am sure that it gets annoying! But today, I actually had to put it into action, because my day was crazy!! I guess my very wonderful but one-time opportunity for a 6 month vacation from life is officially over.

I knew it wouldn’t be the best day as soon as woke up to 3 giant and very painful swellings from a strange insect bite I got last night. It continued right when I got into work, as I realized that the two people I’d be working with were a new employee and the ONE person at my job that I get along with the least. It was probably the busiest day we’ve had since the beginning of summer a couple of months ago, but our staffing was the same. It only made it that much worse that my supervisor chose today of all days to come out and sit next to us all day so she could provide what we all felt was very unnecessary feedback on the workflow. On top of all that, I was still internally dealing with a private family problem as well as another issue I’ve been having with a good friend lately; that’s probably what bothered me the most.

Then, as soon as I stepped into the break room for my lunch break, I got a call from a VERY rude lady at Discover loans who threatened to send my bill to collections and ruin my perfect credit if I didn’t make last months payment within the next five days. I told her that I called as soon as the balance was posted to my account to let them know I’d be starting school again full-time in a month, and to ask if they could take off that payment. They had told me that as long as I fax in my letter of intent to enroll in school, they would drop that payment off my account. Before faxing in the letter, I called AGAIN to verify that upon submitting that letter, my charges would be dropped, and AGAIN, they verified. So, I sent in my letter, and all of a sudden I get the call that there are late charges on my payment and there is nothing I can do to take them off. Needless to say, I was even more upset for the rest of the day.

But then there was the other side. The new coworker turned out to be nicer than I thought, and my other coworker and I got along better today than we probably ever have since I started working here one year ago. The fact that it was such a busy day actually helped me to not think about the pain from the insect bites, and in a way it prepared me for the busy months coming up for the rest of this year. Even though my supervisor was a bit annoying, she did encourage us to participate in a trivia day and bring us ice cream for all our hard work, and I am sure that brightened up everybody’s day a little bit. As for the loan payment, I still had to pay last month’s payment even though they told me I wouldn’t have to, but at least they finally dropped the late fees. The best part of the day was when I actually spent 15 full minutes registering the two children of a reality star from Real Housewives of Atlanta. I was SO happy to see that she wasn’t nearly as crazy as reality TV makes her out to be, and she even conversed with me about my nails and complimented my eyes!

We all know that there is a lot of bad in this world, busy schedules and medical emergencies and chaotic disasters and crazy people doing mean and unfair and selfish things all over the place! Sometimes, it can be hard to remember that there is also that much good–faith, excitement, and intelligent people with open minds that show love and kindness and generosity for absolutely no reason at all. There are two sides to everything, and it is up to us to decide which side to focus on. For every problem in the world, it is important to remember that there is either a solution, or the chance to accept it and move on. No matter what happens in life, it can always be better and it can always be worse. A lot of things happened today that just made me so upset and angry, but then there were some good things that brought a smile to my face and reminded me that everything would be okay.

Perhaps most importantly of all, today I learned even more about myself and about life and of the big picture, and I am surprised to say that I am STILL looking forward to all the insanity life has to bring my way! As long as I am living the best life I can live as the best self I can be, I know that my faith is what will get me through anything and everything, because it reminds me that life is short and it’s okay that it’s crazy because that’s what it means to be alive! Above all, it was the perfect reassurance that true happiness is really internal. I do promise I fully intended on stopping before I got too philosophical, but I suppose it’s too late for that now;).

So basically, today was a good day.