“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude…
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes”
Charles Swindoll
My dad got me this poem (for some reason) when I had a wonderful, fantastic attitude already growing up. 🤭 It was framed in a nice, metal frame and on beautiful, green, shiny paper. I still have it. And look at it when I need a reminder…hence my thought today.
Needless to say, ever since I got this, I was focused on the importance of keeping a positive attitude. It took a bit to mature enough to have that lesson firmly set itself in my life. I took it with me on my mission. There, I solidified it into my character. I still get frustrated and let life get me down, but it is much different now.
It’s definitely serving me well nowadays.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of attitude lately. It’s so easy to whine and complain when things are not going well. And they will not go well many times. We get pessimistic because of them. We only focus on the bad. We want others around us to know how hard we have it. We want sympathy. Well, sooner or later, that negativity gets solidified into our character.
Many times, we don’t even know we are doing that. So, I had to step outside myself and see myself how others saw me. It’s impossible to truly know how we are seen or perceived by someone else. But…we should, nevertheless, be our best selves. Someone may be counting on it.
Whether we know it or not, we have an influence on those around us. That is why it is vital that we surround ourselves with positive and happy people. So we can pick up those traits. We become who we surround ourselves with.
Be the person that you want surrounding you!!
Life is hard. For everyone. We are not the only ones going through something. Everyone is going through something. Most may even have it much worse than we do. They need our support more than we need theirs. They certainly need a positive, happy influence so they can keep going, keep fighting.
So, when I focus only on my own struggles, I try to keep in mind that someone around me needs help getting through something of their own. They, most likely, won’t ask but they need that positive influence to lift them up. Just like I need a positive influence to lift me up.