THE WOLF YOU NEVER KNEW YOU WANTED TO BE

I want to be alone and I want people to notice me — both at the same time.

— Thom Yorke of Radiohead

In Las Vegas, the escalators and moving sidewalks seem to move in only one direction: toward the casinos. Getting in is as easy as finding a Ding Dong in a truck stop. On the other hand, finding your way out is, by design, much more difficult. The intention is to trap you in a maze of distraction that will cause you to spend as much time and money as possible.

When I find myself struggling with moodiness, I feel as though I'm being carried along on a moving sidewalk, headed to a place I won't like and that I'll have a hard time finding my way back from. I started experiencing this sensation in high school. Something would happen to set me off: feeling excluded, being made fun of, embarrassing myself with something I said or did. The next thing I knew, I felt like the ground was moving under my feet.

There was almost always a moment of clarity when I knew I was at a crossroads. In the direction I was heading, I could see storm clouds brewing, vultures circling, the bones of bleached wildebeests that had been picked clean shining in the last moments of sun. This is where my moving sidewalk was taking me, and I hated it.

In the other direction I would see Candy Land — vivid colors, warm light. People smiling and jumping rope, explosions of joy radiating across their faces. If I wanted to be where they were, I would have to make a decision and make it fast, because each moment that passed took me further away from the village of joy. If I did nothing, I would be taken straight to the badlands of gloom.

More often than not, I just stood there. Eventually the movement would end, and I would be left in a world of gray too far from the color to see it, with no idea how to get back. I was officially in a bad mood. Well, some people call it a bad mood. I call it being held hostage by the version of me I don't want to be. You can rearrange my name to spell evil, so I call him Evilevi. He might have my fingerprints and blood type, but he is the worst.

Whether it set in after lunch, during second period, or in the car on the way to school, once I was in it, I was in it. A wall went up, and my enjoyment of life went down. It's impossible to be at ease when you're clenched up on the inside. After an hour or two, whatever originally set me off was no longer the issue; self-pity and self-loathing were the real problems, and they hardened into a mask I felt unable to remove. Eventually I'd give up on the entire day. I'd get to a place where I'd think, This day is spoiled. I'll just have to try again tomorrow.

You've felt that way, haven't you? As though so much of the day has been wasted that there's no use trying to make good decisions. Tomorrow is a new day. This one's no good. We do the same thing when we've made a bad choice about eating: I fell off the wagon for lunch, so I might as well binge at dinner and have a cupcake at bedtime. I should have had a healthy breakfast, but since I didn't the whole day is shot. I'll do better on Monday ... or next month.

Where did we get the idea that one bad decision must be followed by another? Maybe it comes from failing to understand the true meaning of an often-quoted verse written by the prophet Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations:

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (3:22–23 NIV)

What a Bible verse doesn't mean is as important as what it does. Jeremiah isn't saying that a new morning is the only time you have the opportunity to receive mercy; there isn't anything mystical attached to the clock striking midnight. That's not when God's mercies replenish. Your AT&T data plan might roll over at a specific time, but that's not so with the devotion God has allocated for you.

Rather, what Jeremiah emphasizes is that you always have a new shot — because God is that good. You have the option to go to him morning, noon, and night — once a day, nine times a day, every hour if you need to — and claim the help you need for the present struggle you are facing. Hebrews 4:16 says, "So let us boldly approach God's throne of grace. Then we will receive mercy. We will find grace to help us when we need it." You don't have to wait for the start of day; you can seek the grace when you need it.

Astronauts on the International Space Station orbit Earth every ninety minutes, which means they can watch the sun rise and set sixteen times a day. Why? Because they're moving quickly around the earth. How quickly? My friend Shane Kimbrough, who has spent 189 days in space and was the commander of the ISS, told me that when you're on the space station, you are moving 17,500 miles an hour, or 5 miles per second, 200 to 250 miles above the surface of the earth. The picture of an astronaut siting in the Cupola, watching the sun rise and set sixteen times in one day through the enormous window, is key for you to remember as you lean in to the reset God wants to give you: as the heavens are high above the earth, so God's ways are past finding out. The higher you go the more sun rises there are. You needn't write off a day that has been tainted. You can start over on the spot. Shake your internal Etch A Sketch! There are brand new mercies waiting for you. Only pride and silliness allow a bad decision to turn into a bad day and make you defer until tomorrow what you need to do right now.

I love the convenience of calling for an Uber. (I always say "call an Uber." I know you don't literally call them, but I don't have any intention of stopping.) A few clicks of a button, and a car shows up where you are, ready to take you wherever you need to go. It's Amazon Prime for traveling across town.

Quite a few times I have mistaken a vehicle coming to get me with a car on its way to get someone else. Once at an airport I hopped into the back seat of the Uber I had ordered only to discover it wasn't an Uber at all. The driver was even more surprised than I was! The truth is, you don't have to stay in a bad mood any more than you have to stay in the wrong Uber. If you got in, you can get out.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

A bad mood exists only in your mind. That's why the first of the four cards to flip over when you declare war deals with your thoughts. You can't live right...