Attitude is everything

Attitude is everything

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 hereafter,
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 soon-to-be born daughter,’
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 big burly 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.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
After all today is the tomorrow you
worried about yesterday.

Attitude is everything

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