LadyFish
Admiral
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
- Messages
- 6,894
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!"<br /><br /> He was a natural motivator.<br /><br /> If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.<br /><br /> Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, "I don't get it!<br /><br /> You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> I choose to be in a good mood."<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> "Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.<br /><br /> "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<br />situations. You choose how people affect your mood. <br /><br /> You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life."<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.<br /><br /> After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.<br /><br /> I saw him about six months after the accident.<br /><br /> When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"<br /><br /> I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.<br /><br /> "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."<br /><br /> "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.<br /><br /> He continued, "..the paramedics were great.<br /><br /> 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."<br /><br /> "What did you do?" I asked.<br /><br /> "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'."<br /><br /> Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."<br /><br /> 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<br />to live fully.<br /><br /> Attitude, after all, is everything.<br /><br /> Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34.<br /><br /> After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.<br /><br /> God Bless, and smile, it could be contagious!
