Attitude!

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright, quoted in Reader's Digest, June 1995

I found the above quote quite amusing :-) In our daily lives, we often soak up the attitude of those around us, particularly when it's negative... OR we allow their behaviors to influence our attitude and almost always toward the negative.

Why is that, do you suppose? I don't know anyone who really WANTS to go around with a negative attitude, although I could name a few who seem on the verge of making that their life's mission. But why is it so much easier to let ourselves drift into a negative mindset ~ or let someone else's sorry behavior make US feel bad? I think when someone else makes us feel bad (and believe me, I have experience in someone making me feel bad!), it's sometimes because of our own feelings about ourselves...Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And I think that's sometimes where the anger is coming from - and we CONSENT to let that person anger us ~ which then ruins our attitude for minutes, hours, days...

Life has been hectic in this neck of the woods lately. My attitude isn't always what I would hope it would be.

Last night I got a rude awakening regarding my "sniveling" - an email popped into my inbox late last night from Tim, husband of one of my best friends from high school. I was in her wedding, she called me just after the birth of her twins in 1979 (oh my!), and last night her husband sent me an email to let me know she had had a stroke on March 18 and is still in Ohio State University hospital on a ventilator tube. She's 54, about 5 weeks younger than me. And for all of you reading this in your 20s, 30s, and even 40s, 54 is YOUNG!

I got my attitude adjusted pretty quickly again - that happens when I stop long enough to ponder what people are going through - people I care about.

So the next time your attitude is showing, take a deep breath and ask yourself if you want to give up this moment to a bad attitude. You never get that moment back, you know. So don't let someone else take it away from you - and don't give it away by carrying around a poor attitude.

So...moment by moment this week, be aware of your ATTITUDE ~ and remember that you have a choice!
Blessings,
Linda
P. S. Please say a prayer for my friend Debbie and her family, as well as my sister and my husband while you're at it!
www.LindasWorkshops.com
Linda@LindasWorkshops.com