A friend and I were talking earlier and she told me that today was her “Best. Day. Ever.”…
…and that made me wonder, “Have I had my best day ever yet?”
I mean, thinking back, I can certain come up with some good nominees that could have been my best day ever, but I’m only 33. For all I know, I might have a day coming up sometime in the future that would easily be my best day ever.
I certainly hope it’s still to come, suffice to say…although I kind of feel I’ve already had it.
Do you think you’ve already had the best day you’ll ever have? Or do you think you still have it coming?
I realize this is a difficult question to answer because, after all, we can’t predict the future. I also am figuring that most people (like myself) will hope that they have not yet had their best day yet.
But if you think you have, why do you think that? And what happened on that day?
If it turns out I already have, then for sure it had to have been either the day I graduated high school (when all of my family and friends got back together one last time while they were all still alive)…or my 8th birthday party (a great party that was held outdoors and that half the neighborhood seemed to come to).
No way. I think the whole concept is designed to make you look into the past. Because after all, if you’ve already had your “best day” then by definition there are no more best days. I’ve had some awesome great days but I refuse to believe any of them were my “best day”. I still have a lot of years to live!
Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.
Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
I like this topic. I don’t know if I’ve had the best day(s) of my life yet. As others have said, I hope not. In my experience, I have found that the best days I have had were not anticipated to be such amazing days beforehand–as in the most typical “BIG” days that many people would choose, such as their Wedding Day (I was married, and that was a good day, but not “BEST”), the day they had their first child (I don’t have any), etc…
So, my best days include a couple that might seem lame to others, such as once during a vacation in San Juan where I was just sitting by the ocean with a “walkman” on (it was a while back) and the perfect songs were on and I just got into an inexplicably happy mood. The other was my Mom’s 75th birthday (a few months ago–everybody was just perfectly happy–eating, dancing and then singing karaoke–it was a surreal scene out of some lame Broadway musical–but somehow “Best Night Ever.”
I’m looking forward to more “best days ever” type events, but I’m not sure I can predict what the “BIG EVENTS” of those days will be, if any.
I’ve totally already had “the best day of my life” and that was the day I got married in Las Vegas, August 9 2011. It was start-to-finish awesome. I’ve already told you guys about it. It was my dream ever since I was little that if I ever got married it would be in Vegas, and my husband was happy to make my dream come true. We had all our parents and two best friends each and got married under the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. We went to The Gun Store after and then had our wedding dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Our official wedding photo is the tourist photo with the Hard Rock backdrop. The best part of the whole day was just walking around The Strip: me in my wedding dress with tiara & bouquet and the guys in their tuxes, watching people’s faces light up as we walked past. Random people would clap and cheer and congratulate us. It was honestly the greatest day of my life and I could never top that.
The greatest and happiest “moment” of my life was when I made another lifelong dream come true and saw Duran Duran in concert (the 5 original members reunited in 2003) by myself in Cleveland (took a bus from Toronto) and I ended up 3rd row floor. I was so close I could see Simon LeBon’s blue eyes.
So yeah, the best days of my life have already happened, as far as I’m concerned. I know other awesome days are ahead (I have 2 items left on my Bucket List) but honestly, my wedding day was my “best day ever.”
It’s funny how that works. There were some days that I really dreaded, and which turned out to be amazing.
Back in May a friend (not a close friend) begged me and a bunch of other people to march in the pride parade. What?!? I’m not even gay! Why would I do such a thing? That didn’t turn out to be the best day of my life, but it was definitely the best day of my year. What a party!
Years ago I read a short story, I think in the great but defunct Twilight Zone Magazine, about this very thing. A guy wanders into a library and a librarian I think representing one of the Three Fates hands him a book wherein he reads about the best day he ever had or will have in his life. It turned out to have been when he was a kid and he had a brief glorious moment as the hero on his baseball team and everything was right in the world. The guy leaves in tears knowing no day he ever has in the future will be as good as that day ( but he somehow wins some sort of moral victory over the nasty Fate that was screwing with him, I forget the details ).
All in all a very depressing story from my standpoint :).
I’d be interested in knowing what that victory was, if anyone remembers.
I’d also have a hard time picking a best day. Even if I was suddenly given a perfect memory at the end of my life, how would I quantify and compare? I’m happy with small moments.
For instance, I’m currently reading Dodger, by Terry Pratchett, and enjoying it. It’s not possible to do that without occasionally comparing the experience to reading a Discworld novel, but I’m not even going to try deciding which is best.
I do remember the clearest, most crystaline moment of relief I’ve ever felt. But that’s not quite the same thing. Is a massage better than finding a really painful pun? Is finally getting that report off your desk, and knowing that it’s going to be well received better than a perfectly baked chocolate chip cookie? How about a perfectly baked mint-flavored chocolate chip cookie, which is harder because if you let them brown more than a little, the dough looses it’s festive green color? How about that same fragrant, green cookie at Christmas, when everyone has been begging you to make them?
In the next year, I will graduate from college (which is a big deal in my family and which seemed impossible at times due to illness) and get married (to someone who I’be known for half my life and loved for over five years). We may someday buy a house, take good trips, or have children. I think things are going to get better for me. My Best Day is waiting for me. Just being able to have hope like that is proof of how far I’ve come.
Yes – I was able to give a public [academic] talk in my favorite place in the world, on my favorite object in the world as part of symposium which will be published under the auspices of that same institution (it’s in editorial hell at the moment; the wheels of academia grind slowly).
It’s funny you ask this, because I was just wondering what my best day ever so far has been.
I definitely think I haven’t already had my best day ever and I believe there’s infinite potential for things to get better and better.
I sort of think maybe my best day ever didn’t make a lasting imprint. It would’ve been a day where everything went well and nothing went wrong. I’m a creature of simple pleasures. It might have been a beautiful spring day where nothing much was required of me and I was able to be immersed in an engrossing book all day and then at night I had great sex.
My wedding day was wonderful: the weather was perfect, I was surrounded by people I love, I was the center of attention, there was dancing and I was marrying the love of my life…but there was a lot of stress and pressure too.
The days my babies were born were wonderful…indeed I think I get a special hormone euphoria from birth that not all women do. But there was also a lot of pain and exhaustion and sometimes life-threatening complications (once for the baby, once for me).
Some hallmarks of the best day ever: wonderful weather, lots of outdoor time, surrounded by people I love who love me, singing, dancing.
I’ve had some pretty damned amazing days along the way, and if no future moment matches the best of them, that’s still an awfully high ceiling on how good a day a future day can be.
And I’m hardly sure that I’ve already had the best day of my life. Watching my son grow up has already had many awesome moments, and we’re still early on.
I wish that I could get back all of the sleep I’ve lost on Sunday evenings
worrying about Monday because there has never been a Monday as bad as the
anticipation the night before.
I’ve had a number of very good days and at least two absolutely wonderful days: The day I got married and the day my son was born. I don’t know if those will turn out to have been my best days ever, but maybe I have something even better to look forward to!
This is something I’ve thought about a lot. For me, I don’t think there can be a “best day ever.” I have had some magnificently wonderful days for sure, but they were wonderful for different reasons or in different ways, so I couldn’t really pick one out as best. It would not depress me to know I had experienced the best day of my life, though, because it wouldn’t mean that I would not have plenty more awsomely good days. This would be a top candidate for best day of my life:
We suspected my wife was pregnant with our first and only child, so we went to the hospital where I worked and one of my best friends, Lenny, did a blood test “on the house” that confirmed yes we were going to have a baby!!! So that was happy happy news, and on top of that I just loved Lenny and thought he was one of the coolest guys ever, and I had long been hoping my wife could meet him, and so she did and ended up thinking he was really cool and we ended up becoming good friends with Lenny and his wife. Then after the blood test we went out to a Mariner’s game in the old King Dome. We had front row seats in the upper deck - nice view - when Mariner’s catcher Dave Valle came up to bat and popped a high, arcing fly ball… right at me. I stood up and snagged it out of the air for a great bare-hand catch. The cameras swung around and there I was, up on the big Diamond Vision screen brandishing the ball in my hand, my wife laughing at my side. Unbeknownst to me, my best friend from high school was there with his wife, sitting off third base. He saw me snag the ball, then recognized me on the Diamond Vision screen, and made his way up to where we were sitting and we had a mini-reunion. After the game the four of us went out for a nice dinner in the International District. All in all about as close to a perfect day as you can get.
In contrast to a handful of contenders for best day of my life, the worst day of my life stands out clear and stark above all other bad days. If I knew another day like 12/11/10 was coming my way, I would kill myself to avoid it.
I’ve had one amazing “best” day. I sure hope it wasn’t the only one, but so far not much has come close to touching it for sheer fun, wonder, magic and just being all out fantastic. It was my first date with my former boyfriend around 14 years ago. Most of the relationship was pretty terrific as well. I hope I have a second chance at love so I can have another “best day”.
