Category: Inspiration

Attitude (Yes, it is a forward)

I can’t claim this story.  It was forwarded to me by my wife, but I like it.
Attitude
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.’ Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Is this fun?

Did I ever tell you that I hate to run?  Running can not be natural.  If you think about it, gravity and friction fight against our every step.  But to survive, we pretty much need to  move around to get the food we need to survive.  We need that food to fuel our bodies so we can move around, and, wait a minute…… what a cruel trick.

When I was in High School, I ran 4 years of track and one year of Cross Country.   I was not not a great runner, but I did pretty well.  I hated running then.  Why did I rn if hated running?  I had a bigger goal.  I had something working in me that over road my hate for running.  I was a wrestler.  I had to stay in shape, so if I had run, I might as well get some accountability and competition to drive me on.   So I ran.

I run now because there is something bigger than my hate of running.  I pray that at some point I will get “addicted” to running and will  begin to love it, but I am not holding my breath.

We are all born into a situation that was not intended for us.  God intended only good for us, but we chose a life rebelling against his plan.  Something in us drives us to fight against the very things which would bring us true fulfillment and joy.  The gravity and friction of sin continue to drag me to a stand still.  He has given us a plan and stands by to assist us in overcoming the hurdles that our own selfishness has laid before us.  Thankfully, if we place our faith in the  “Coach of Coaches” and his training plan, we can win against these forces that fight against us.

 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–>20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”  Romans 7:14-25

Why do I call myself old?

Why do I call myself old you ask?  I know many people that are older than me, that are more active, in better shape, and much more alert than I am. Old has nothing to do with age.  It seems that those people understand the sentiment of Henry David Thoreau:
 "I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."
Over the years, I have allowed life to suck the marrow out of me so to speak and rob me of joys that come with being alive. I have lived a life full of blessing that should have filled my days with dancing. Instead, I wallowed in negative feelings of what could have been.  What was I thinking!  Like Theoden, King of Rohan, in J.R.R. Tolken’s, Lord of The Rings, I have been weakened and aged by years of self doubt and negative thinking. 
I am not old!  Most of the heroes of the Old Testament were not considered worthy of anointing until they were much older than me.  Unlike Zachariah, John the Baptist’s father, I am pretty confident that, as our wise pastor so eloquently stated, “all the plumbing still works.”  It is time to step up and take hold of the reigns of my life and live on purpose, and obtain the joy that comes with living.  Find your passion and join me in this quest to live life to its fullest.
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs-even. Though checkered by failure than to take rank with these poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much. Be wise, they live in the gray twilight that know not of victory, nor defeat, nor true sorrow nor true love."--Theodore Roosevelt
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