We all have our bad days, and then we have our particularly bad days. The days where, from sunrise to sunset, everything that could possibly go wrong seems to go wrong. Maybe you wake up late for class -- and feeling sick. And then you get to class and realize you left the paper that was due that day sitting on top of your desk. And then there's a pop quiz. And then you go to the dining hall for lunch and spill scalding hot soup all over, giving yourself blisters. And then, in an effort to clean up the soup, you knock over an entire cup of soda and spray it all over everyone and everything. And then your laptop dies while you're in the library studying. And you crawl back to your dorm room at the end of the night lamenting over the awful, miserable day you've had. Maybe you've had one of those days recently. Maybe you're having one of those days right now.

(In case you're curious about these oddly specific examples, they were taken from my own life, mostly all in the same day...so, yeah.)

Sometimes, life just doesn't go our way. You know what they say -- what goes up must come down. We're all guaranteed to have some terrible days in our lifetime. We're going to have days where we spill soup and forget assignments. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. But what's important is how we handle those bad days, because that's what can make us or break us.

For example, I'm an extremely stressed person. And the reason I'm so stressed is because I'm so easily stressed out. It doesn't take much. It takes barely anything at all. One bad grade, or one cup being knocked over, or having too many things to accomplish in one day with definitely not enough time to tackle it all. So, for me, when it rains, it most certainly pours. I can tell that I'm going to have a bad day when one small thing goes wrong in the morning, because it always inevitably snowballs. And at the end of the day, I'm left with this huge mess of frustration because life just isn't going my way. And most of the time, I don't know what to do with it.

What I've learned, however, is that wallowing around in my own self-pity won't do me any good. Sure, I had a bad day. Sure, it really sucked and a lot of bad things happened. Sure, my body is so overwhelmed with stress at the current moment. But through experience, I've learned that lamenting over these facts won't do anything to help me. There are more conductive methods to reversing the awful feelings that have collected throughout the day. I can read a book. I can work on stuff for my blog. I can write, I can call my family, I can call my boyfriend. I can even just sleep -- something that college students get way too little of, especially during finals, which just passed. I can take a hot shower and watch Netflix. I can call up some friends and grab some food. I can do anything to take my mind off of school and the bad day I've had. The possibilities are endless.

I used to think that if I had a terrible day, it had to remain terrible. I figured that was just how it was supposed to be, and I was supposed to roll with the punches and be miserable and hope for a better day tomorrow. It took me a long time to realize that, when life just isn't going your way, you can stop the "inevitable" snowball in its tracks. You can decide that you don't want your day to continue in such a negative manner, and then you can use whatever methods are comfortable for you to de-stress and give yourself a fresh start.

It's inevitable that we're all going to have bad days. But it isn't set in stone that we have to let them stay bad.

Through time, I've learned that we can't stop the bad days from happening, but what we can change is how we react to them. Life won't always go your way. It certainly doesn't always go my way. But instead of breaking down and lamenting over how awful my luck and and the universe is (something that I used to do very often, actually), I've learned that there are little ways to unwind and let the stress of a bad day dissipate. And once all of those bad feelings go away, you get to start with a clear head and a fresh new morning to make everything right again -- as long as you avoid the soup in the dining hall.