Oct

22

How to Deal with a Bad Day

category icon Posted in General

I’m not going to lie: I’ve had a terrible day. I originally wrote this post about the week I had last week, but then I received some bad news on Friday that really put things in perspective. I’ll spare you the details, but I want to write about how to deal with bad days or weeks when you’re away from home because it happens to everyone and because I think that I’ve come out of this one decently enough to give some advice.

Sometimes you can’t fix things. Sometimes you don’t realize how easy it is to lose a good thing. These are cliches that most people will think about after a failure or falling out of some sort, but I’ve found that the only way to move past them is to stop wallowing. Discovering that you’ve wasted a bunch of time on top of your issues only makes things worse. I spend too much time trying to think about how I can turn a bad situation into a good one, but sometimes there is no better side to the situation. I have to remind myself that life doesn’t always get increasingly better with the amount of effort you put into it. Accepting this can be hard, and it can be even harder when you’re with people you’ve only known for two months and don’t know if you should turn to them with your issues. I find it alright to just be around my friends, even if I don’t tell them what’s up. Sometimes I’ll just walk around in a quiet area. Or think about a class that I’m really interested in. Or look at the situation holistically. That last one can be hard. Saying, “well, I’m still a pretty privileged person in the scheme of things,” tends to annoy more than comfort me. But I do know that there are a lot of things that I still have to look forward to. Midterms round two, for example. The Cubs doing well in the semifinals. The weekend. That huge rhetoric project that I’m actually excited about.

Life in college can be fast-paced and slow at the same time. There’s so much to do when I need there to be, but then again when I think about it I’m not required to do anything at all, except call my parents because they’re paying my tuition. So, if you’re ever having a bad day or week or month or year, have conversations with your friends about how to build a force field. Or go for an indoor walk because it’s really cold outside. Or watch Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Cosmos, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while and because I think that the universe is a good type of perspective to think about. There are also a couple of spots on campus that are good places to just sit and think, like the sculpture outside the theater building or the benches in Hubbard Park. But, most of all, the way I best get over things is to rely on the future. I’m no therapist, but I’ve heard that if you can find one good thing to look forward to tomorrow, then you’ll be alright. If that really is true, and if my previous days in college serve as evidence, then I’ll be at least fine for quite a while.

-Mina

Leave a Comment