Instructions For A Bad Day

Words of encouragement for your inevitable bad day.

A compilation of worldwide YouTube content, the crowd-sourced documentary "Life in a Day" by Kevin Macdonald, and local footage by Jon Goodgion. Audio is the spoken word poem "Instructions For a Bad Day" by Shane Koyczan.

Rights remain to respective owners.

(dial tone)

There will be bad days.

Be calm.

Loosen your grip, opening
each palm slowly now.

Let go.

Be confident.

Know that now is only a moment

and that if today is as bad as it gets

understand that by tomorrow,
today will have ended.

Be gracious.

Accept each extended hand offered,

to pull you back from
the somewhere you cannot escape.

Be diligent.

Scrape the gray sky clean.

Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen

meant to blind us from the truth,

and the truth is whether we see them or not

the sun and moon are still there

and always there is light.

Be forthright.

Despite your instinct to say

"it's alright, I'm okay"...

be honest.

Say how you feel without fear or guilt,
without remorse or complexity.

Be lucid in your explanation,
be sterling in your repose.

If you think for one second
no one knows what you've been going through;

be accepting of the fact that you are wrong,

that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair
have at times been felt by everyone

that pain is part of the human condition

and that alone makes you a legion.

We hungry underdogs,
we risers with dawn,

we dismissers of odds,
we pressers of on

we will station ourselves to the calm.

We will hold ourselves to the steady,

be ready player one.

Life is going to come at you
armed with hard times and tough choices,

your voice is your weapon,
your thoughts ammunition

there are no free extra men,

be aware that as the instant now passes,

it exists now as then.

So be a mirror reflecting yourself back,

and remembering the times when you thought

all of this was too hard
and you'd never make it through.

Remember the times you could have pressed quit

but you hit continue.

Be forgiving.

Living with the burden
of anger is not living.

Giving your focus to wrath
will leave your entire self absent of what you need.

Love and hate are beasts
and the one that grows is the one you feed.

Be persistent.

Be the weed growing through
the cracks in the cement...

beautiful

because it doesn't know
it's not supposed to grow there.

Be resolute.

Declare what you accept
as true in a way that envisions

the resolve with which you accept it.

If you are having a good day,
be considerate.

A simple smile could be the first-aid kit
that someone has been looking for.

If you believe with absolute honesty
that you are doing everything you can...

do more.

There will be bad days.

Times when the world weighs on you for so long
it leaves you looking for an easy way out.

There will be moments when
the drought of joy seems unending.

Instances spent pretending that everything
is alright when it clearly is not.

Check your blind spot.

See that love is still there.

Be patient.

Every nightmare has a beginning,

but every bad day has an end.

Ignore what others have called you.

I am calling you friend.

Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis.

Silence left to its own devices breeds silence.

So speak and be heard.

One word after the next, express
yourself and put your life in the context.

If you find that no one is listening...

be loud.

Make noise.

Stand in poise and be open.

Hope in these situations is not enough
and you will need someone to lean on.

In the unlikely event that you have no one,

look again.

Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen.

The deaf will hear you with their eyes.

The blind will see you with their hands.

Let your heart fill their news-stands,

Let them read all about it.

Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights.

Listen to the insights of those who
have been there, but come back.

They will tell you;

you can stack misery,
you can pack dispair

you can even wear your sorrow

but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.

Everyone knows pain.

We are not meant to carry it forever.

We were never meant to hold it so closely,

so be certain in the belief that what pain
belongs to now will belong soon to then.

That when someone asks
you, "How was your day?",

realize that for some of us

it's the only way we know how to say,

be calm.

Loosen your grip,

opening each palm,

slowly now...

let go.