An email I got today.



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.'
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.
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.

__________________
Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating