Awhile back, someone sent me this email. You may have read it too. It certainly brings home the point of attitudes.
John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!'He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?'He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.'
'Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or ... I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.' Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.'
'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.
'Yes, it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life.'
I reflected on what he said. Soon after that, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about six months after the accident.
When I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?'
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.
'The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my kids,' he replied. 'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live.'
'Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?' I asked
He continued, '...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action.'
'What did you do?' I asked.
'Well, there was a nurse shouting questions at me,' said John. 'She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity.' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.
Attitude, after all, is everything. And, your attitude is your choice.
We can blame circumstances for our attitude. We can blame the actions of others for our attitude. We can even blame the dog. But the truth is, we decide, we choose and we determine our attitude at any given moment.
The attitude that you have right now, at this very moment, is the one you have chosen to carry around. It is determined by your thoughts.
Think about it. When was the last time you had a lousy attitude and a great day? Do you think that a connection exists between attitude, thoughts and physical realities of the day you are having? Of course it does!
Undoubtedly, there will days with circumstances that we cannot change. There may be people we deal with that act like jerks. Yet, regardless of what we are faced with each day, we can choose to let it affect our attitude, or we can choose to not let it affect our attitude.
What will be your choice?
