If you had to pick the singular best day of your life, could you do it?  For some, certain days may stand out more than others.  There’s the day you marry the love of your life, or welcome a new bundle of joy to the family.  There’s days of achievement like graduations and job promotions that stake up to the coveted spot of “best day ever.”  Maybe there’s a top 10 list you could make, but it seems to be extremely difficult to pick out one.

But if there was a best day, would you only want that one day and all the glorious feelings, experiences and people to last for a mere 24 hours? None of us should have to live by the Cinderella rule where the “bestness” of a best day needs to expire at midnight.  We can take the ingredients and make them span weeks, months, even years.

That’s because best days don’t just happen.  While some wonderful surprises are spontaneous, like unexpectedly running into a friend, or getting comped a burrito bowl because you waited too long, most things in life don’t happen to us, we make them happen.  It’s how we choose to respond to what life gives us and how we play those cards that determines whether each day we live has the potential to be the best one yet.

I’ve had my periods of “funks” where life gets a little too stressful, infuriating, sad and scary.  Usually my response is to pull away and retreat into myself and process things.  Sometimes I do think alone time can be a good thing, we all need those days of just being to ourselves.  But there’s a fine line between a day and that turning into a consistent pattern.

Far too often I’ve gotten myself into a routine that leaves me feeling pretty blah. Wake up. Go to work. Go to class. Come home. Do more work. Go to sleep. Repeat. It can be monotonous and unfulfilling.  But then there’s days where you meet your best friend to go on an adventure.  You map out a few used bookstores in the city you’re in and some local coffee shops and you make a day of just exploring.  Today, it was books.  But it can be anything.  It could be bike rides, hikes, visiting a few art galleries, signing up for a pretty tough obstacle course, learning how to curl or sitting back and having a game night filled with some unforgettable conversation.

The best part of what makes a best day, a best day is that there are no requirements.  You can be you and do what you want.  You can have a meaningful conversation.  You can go on an unexpected adventure.  You can learn something new or do something different.  There is no hierarchy of what makes a best day the epitome.  For me, the day I welcome a child of my own into my family could be just as rewarding as today, the day I met my best friends together, we did something different and we had wonderful conversation.  The best days can be momentous occasions or the simplest exchanges.

The heart of it all lies in making our best day our best days.  Taking the most of today, the heart-filling goodness that happened and carrying it over to tomorrow. Because when life gives us a bad day, we will learn to find the good in it.  When life gives us a day too busy and too stressful, we will crave the balance of fun and fulfillment. And a day not spent making the most of the 24 hours we have, not spent enjoying ourselves and learning something new about ourselves, well I don’t consider that a best day.  Only one that leaves our soul feeling complete, ourselves fulfilled and thankful can be a best day.

So can you pinpoint the best day of your life? Too many to choose from? Good. Keep it that way!