My English teacher in high school used to say “there is no sunshine without shadow.” I thought the quote was flawed because sunlight, of course, can exist even without casting shadows. But it’s not about the logic of whether sunlight can exist, it’s about whether we can learn to acknowledge its presence.

I’m not saying we should try to turn every bad day into a good day. I’m not asking you to turn “lemons into lemonade.” Instead, I’m saying that only by tasting lemons will we know how sweet lemonade really is. Imagine a brokenhearted soul that finds true love, or a homeless man that wins the lottery. The stark contrasts between life’s experiences let us fully appreciate the moments that make it wonderful. Life is relative, and more than that, the experiences in our lives are relative. Without bad days, we would never even notice the good ones.