How To Be Your Best When Everything Is The Worst

If you’ve ever watched a Disney Channel Original movie or seen an inspirational poster with a kitten on it you know the importance of trying your best.

Don’t give up! Hang in there! Give it your all because you’re a superstar! 

We’re taught to try our best before we’re taught how to use a toilet on our own. It’s an invaluable component of the American Dream. You work your hardest and it pays off in the end. You just need to wake up everyday and say “I’m going to be the best me I can be!” But recently, I’ve found that “the best me I can be” changes every single day.

Some days I wake up on top of the world. I get up early. I’m productive. I treat others with respect and decency. I love and am loved in return. The sun is on my face and the wind is at my back and cartoon birds are singing a sweet tune as I skip down the street.

Other days I can hardly get out of bed without the desire to crawl into a dank dark cave for a few years. My cowlick just won’t go down. That guy at Starbucks didn’t get my order right. Where did this stain on my shirt come from? Why is my armpit so itchy!? Why can’t everyone just get out of my way? Don’t they know I, unlike them, actually have places to be? Cattle! You’re all cattle!

Sound familiar?

What do we do on the days when the world decides to chew you up and spit you out, leaving you a crumpled mess on the floor? What do you do when the sun in your face is too bright and the wind at your back is a little too cold? How am I supposed to try my best if I can barely get dressed in the morning without wanting to commit arson?

On days when the world is against you, sometimes being the best you you can be is the you that sits in bed and binges on Ugly Betty. Maybe the best you can do today is to not snap at the girl who gave you a venti instead of a trenta. Maybe it’s getting through the day without a breakdown or getting through a day of class without considering dropping out of school forever. Maybe the best you that day is the you that realizes your slump, these problems, that cowlick and the girl who kept farting next to you on the train are only temporary and you might as well batten down the hatches and break out the brownie batter ice cream.

Sometimes you just need to accept that today isn’t the day you take the world by storm. But tomorrow? Tomorrow will be that day.

And when you wake up on that fateful morning, remind yourself that it is your day. You will destroy anything and anyone that stands in your way. You will instill fear in the hearts of men. You will singlehandedly dismantle the patriarchy. And you will be the badass all those years of watching Disney Channel Original Movies have taught you to be.