I got an email today from a friend – one of those that goes ’round and ’round. This one a story of a man who choses to be positive despite the trials of his life. So here’s the story (pay close attention to the last paragraph):
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.’
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.
_________
After that great story about choosing to see things positively, the story ends with the notion that each day is “trouble!” Isn’t that a choice right there? Our choice to perceive the world as positive or negative? To perceive the future as holding joy or “trouble?” One of my teachers says: “The world is a horrible place full of pain and struggle/ The world is a wonderful place full of joy and opportunity. You choose.” And in that choosing, you create the world that you see.
My we all chose the world of joy and opportunity for ourselves and for each other.