“When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.” – Epictetus
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There once was a lady who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, noticed and said, “I only have three strands of hair on my head.” Instead of feeling depressed, she told himself, “Well, I think I’ll braid my hair today!” And so, it was and the lady had a wonderful day.
The next day, she got up from her bed and again looked in the mirror. She noticed she had only two strands of hair on her head. “Hmmm,” she sighed, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today!” And so, it was and she had a grand day.
The following day, she woke up and again looked in the mirror. She only had one strand of hair left on her head. “Well,” she said, “today I’m going to wear my hair in a ponytail!” And so, it was and she, once again, had a fun day.
Once again, the very next day, she woke up, looked in the mirror, noticed and said, “I don’t have a single strand of hair left on my head.” Then, she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!” Once again, as usual, the lady had another, beautiful, fun-filled, and happy day.
Timothy Bentley pointed out, “Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” And from the aforementioned anecdote above, we can say that attitude is indeed everything.
My ever dependable Webster dictionary defines attitude as “state of thought or feeling.” Attitude is how we look at things from our own perspective. At one time, I asked a group of young people how much water was in a glass. A few said, “Half full,” but a lot of them said, “Half empty.” Foster’s law stated: “The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.”
John Homer Miller said it right, “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
Tom Blandi contends, “Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”
Frederick Langbridge declared, “Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”
There was this anecdote of a man who was walking in a tropical forest. He became lost and was unable to find his way out. Another man met him. “I am lost,” he said, “can you show me the way out of this forest?”
“No,” replied the stranger, who was also lost, “I cannot show you the way out of the forest, but maybe if I walk with you, we can find it together.”
This story reminds me of Dr. Victor E. Frankl, survivor of three grim years at Auschwitz and other Nazi prisons. In his own words, he has recorded his observation on life in Hitler’s camps:
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Attitudes are contagious, someone said. Is yours worth catching? In a Reader’s Digest feature, Herm Albright was quoted as saying: “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson penned: “The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.”
Susanna Clark was also talking about attitude when she penned, “You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money. You’ve got to love like you’ll never get hurt. You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching. You’ve got to come from the heart, if you want it to work.”
Chris Evert has the same view in mind: “If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there’s going to be a life after tennis that’s a lot longer than your tennis life.”
“Success or failure,” said Dupree Jordan, “depends more upon attitude than upon capacity. Successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it will become a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.”
Buddha summons: “Let us rise up and be thankful, for it we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so let us all be thankful.”
“Happiness is an attitude,” said Francesca Reigler. Yes, I know a lot of people who have a hard time meeting both ends and yet they are happy and contented. It seems that they have everything in life. On the other hand, I know rich people who are sad and lonely. “We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong,” Reigler added. “The amount of work is the same.”
