Let's hear it for Bad Days!

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so...righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.” (2 Nephi 2:11)
“Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment....Thy friends do stand by thee.” (D&;C 121:7-9)


Bad days.

We all have them.  No matter how on-the-ball we think we are, sooner or later we have a "bad day." Sometimes it's a "bad week."  In hindsight, I'm pretty sure I had a "bad junior high."  It's just part of life.  A crucial part of life, in fact; the emotional and circumstantial crucible (new vocab word!) in which we forge our own characters.  

Tenderness for a wife?  Unwavering support of a husband?  Assiduous nurturing of a son or daughter? Selfless service to a friend?  Faith, hope, charity and love?  Please.  Easily done...on our good days. Then there are the days of two-hour traffic jams.  And unmet work deadlines.  Failed school exams. Illness.  Discouragement.  Creamy peanut butter in the cupboard (I only do chunky!).    

Each of us has different ways of coping with life in all its unpredictable, often inconvenient, yet ultimately priceless complexity.  For introverts and extroverts alike, a time-honored remedy for the blues is a bit of time alone, in peace and quiet, to put things back into perspective.  But where's that fine line between a well-deserved break from the world and risky emotional withdrawal?  Where does healing, reflective solitude end and poisonous, self-centered wallowing begin?

Oh, I don't know.

Or do I?

No, I really don't.  That fine line is different for each of us.  But there are a few general principles that might prove helpful:
Family and friends, by definition, are there to listen, to uplift, to empathize and hug.  Allowing them to do so in our own times of need not only comforts us, it validates them as well.
Self-imposed emotional isolation does not, and never did, equate “strength.”
We're not the only ones who have bad days.  The more we find ourselves concerned with our own blown-out-of-proportion misery, the more we jeopardize our emotional recovery while ignoring the needs of our loved ones next door.
Our virtual age is positively drowning in the siren songs of escapism, self-centered gratification, and me-centric technological entertainment, hawked and advertised as pillars of the modern lifestyle and panaceas for boredom, discouragement, loneliness, and sadness.  And to the extent they separate us from real-time, intimate relationships, they undermine our best remedies for the “bad days:” 
Holding a girlfriend's hand; 
Sincerely thanking a parent; 
Hugging a child; 
Encouraging a boyfriend; 
Embracing a spouse; 
...Living, and living well.