What makes a bad day ?

On Sunday night, I come home, tired, after the busy Holy week. I had planned to apply for an Italian Visa on Monday morning, so I gathered the documents in my laptop and started to print them. Of course, with the expectation that I still had enough black ink in my printer. Yet it had already ran out of drops. After some alternatives were out of considerations, I replanned my appointment to Tuesday. Then I had several reasons to burst into anger today :

• I went to the computer shop to buy some cartridges for my printer, I even bought 2 of them since I wasn't sure that one is sufficient. But guess what ? The label of the cartridges was 60 (what I needed is 61) and they couldn't be used to print. And I only noticed after I set it up to my printer, just to see the error message. Without saying anything, I quickly went back to the MRT station and to the mall for the first time.
• So this time I bought the 'correct' cartridges (Yes, I saw they are indeed 61). I didn't see much except the number, then quickly paid and headed back home. Then my housemate suddenly hurled a dicussion about me not turning off AC some other day (Yes Sir, I was wrong, but not in the mood to talk about it)
• So I went straight to my room and opened one of the new cartridge. It took me a few seconds just to see that they are COLOR cartridges, not BLACK ones. Yes, I bought 2 of them, again. And then there was a moment of silence before I took action : went back to the shop for the second time.

And finally, the mission was accomplished. At least, I lost about S$100 and 1 hour with this 'little' incident. Normally, my choleric mind should had exploded. But it didn't. And I knew it wasn't my sole power. So I want to thanks God for these things :

• Along the journey, I brought with me a tiny Christian book to read. I read about how to love properly and control your emotion.
• The McD's temptation ! Fast food was one of my 'tools' to extinguish my anger. When I was stressed out, I can go out to find some fast food. But I know due to my commitment, I can't eat fried food. I was very tempted, and I fought against it so hard. Thanks God after 5 times in total passing that spot, I managed to not approach the front door.
• I can keep my calm (not shouting, not throwing / hitting / kicking things, not cursing) throughout everything. I constantly asked God to help me with the  mind-battle and successfully stepped over the pit fall. 

Finally, I came across this Bible verse

James 1:19-20
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

So what makes a bad day ? Let alone a big shocking news, a few of small incidents are more than able. But when we strive to slow down our anger, and when we ask God to enable us in doing so, I believe such days are non-existent in our calendar.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Cis Harry