There are two types of bad days.

The first is where a single embarrassing or tragic event changes the course of the day. It usually starts off normally, even happily, making the shift that much more noticeable. The second is the kind that lasts so long that it separates into mini days. In other words, the day is so endlessly terrible that by the end of it you feel as though many other days have passed in between. This one usually starts awfully and only continues to build towards a bitter end. My family tends to experience bad days as a collective and some bad days are better than others.

Putting my family members in a room together is like waiting for a bomb to explode. We are all loud to some degree and extremely opinionated. One day, we were particularly stressed. The tension in the air was palpable and it was obvious that we were straining to keep up appearances. There was only one person standing in the eye of the storm and that was my stepdad smiling throughout the whole ordeal. I asked him later how he could possibly be so cheerful amid the commotion and he told me that if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. I don’t know if I’d call that advice, but I think about that day a lot.

Because that day I learned that life is funny when it’s sad.

In arguments with someone else, it is easy to decide to be the bigger person because we can weigh the consequences based off who we are arguing with. We unconsciously place a value on the other person and decide if they are worth solving the issue for. However, when it is you versus a stream of bad luck there is no one to place blame on or to project your problems towards. Instead, you have to decide how to react for your own sake.

Just as there are two types of bad days, there are two ways to react to bad days. You can either be angry or happy. And while that may have been a rather obvious statement, there are pros to both.

If you choose to be angry you are allowing yourself to feel the intensity of your circumstance. Sometimes things are so awful you just need to soak in it and while it is not healthy to hold on to that frustration, it is healthy to allow yourself to express it. The second option is to spin the event to the best of your ability. This is how we formulate that “oh my god guess what just happened to me” text to our friends. This is how we prepare ourselves for when someone asks what your most embarrassing moment was. This is how we reach the point of stupid invincibility.

Once you realize that you are in control of any situation, nothing can touch you.