I have family issues. I have personal issues. I have relationship issues. I have financial issues. I have social issues. I have health issues. I got made fun of in school. I feel bad about the times I picked on someone in school. I’ve done things I am not proud of. I’ve done some embarrassing things. I have a lot of stress in my life. I would be a lot happier if I had more money.

Sound like someone you know? Sound like everyone you know? Have you ever wondered why some people always seem to be in a bad mood and some never seem to stop smiling? Is there anything worse than having a bad day and being in a bad mood only to have one of those “the sun shines out of my ass” people start talking to you? Ever been having a really good day and had a “I hate the world” people try and bring you down? I have always hated when people tell you to just snap out of your bad mood like its so easy. Then it finally dawned on me. It is just a switch you can turn on and off at your leisure. It has to be. If it wasn’t there would never be any happy or miserable people. It would just be 6 billion people in constant flux from ecstatic to infuriated and back 10 times a day.

I started this off with a bunch of general statements. I bet you can identify yourself saying over 75% at one point or another. The only problem with that is we never think that at the same time you were thinking/saying those things, Most of the people you know were saying the exact same thing. Hell, 95% of the people you pass on the street are probably thinking most if not all of those things on the way to work. Yet, some are smiling, some are humming along to their iPods, some are indifferent, some look like they want to kill someone. So if everyone has the same issues (I’m not discounting anyones worries or issues, everyones issues are unique in their situation but you aren’t the only one in the world who gets in fights with your family, you’re not special, I’m sorry) then why isn’t everyone as happy/sad/indifferent/mad as you? What makes the 50yr old guy in the suit so angry at everything while the 50yr old in the suit next to him doesn’t appear to have a care in the world?

If you want to be happy right now, say this in your head: “I have it pretty good all things considered”. And if you really think about it and come to terms with it, Tada! you are now one of the millions of happy people in the world at this second. There is a terminally ill person in one of the dozens of hospitals in Boston right now who is thinking that right now and is probably smiling. He could have tubes coming out of him and been give a death sentence by his doctors but he recognizes that things could be a whole lot worse so why waste any time being miserable?

“Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.” -Harry Emerson

Who does being pissed off really hurt other than you? Do you think the guy that cut you off in traffic gives a shit that you are cursing him out the whole way to work? You think you are accomplishing anything by stewing in anger over trivial shit (in the grand scheme of things, just about everything is trivial)?

I had the pleasure of listing to people from a different town than I grew up in talk about middle school/high school last night. If you took out the names and locations I would have sworn they were talking about my own schools. Everyone knows the weird kid who smelled. There was always a group of punks that trouble seemed to follow them like a lost puppy. We all had a friend who got weird and now its awkward to see. There will always be rumors about a teacher and a student hooking up (half the time, not unfounded). We think we are all so unique and so different from one another but the more you get to know other people and find out their fears and worries you start to realize that just because its wrapped in a different package and comes in a different flavor, deep down it pretty much the same.

So next time you are in a shitty mood remember that you aren’t the first, the only, or the last to feel what you are feeling. A million people have been in your situation and managed to survive just fine. Fact: Most people you are mad at don’t know or don’t care. Fact: worrying about shit that you can’t control has never solved anything. So flip that switch. Make the choice. Make people think the sun shines from your rectal cavity. What’s the worst that happens? You piss off someone in a bad mood? That was going to happen regardless of you so to hell with them. There will always be miserable people who choose to stay that way. Don’t let yourself be one.