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 make 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.’ And 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. 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 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 choose to life.”
“Weren’t you scared? Did you loose 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 me 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 it’s own.’ Matthew 6:34
You have two choices now:
1) Forget about it.
2) Tell it to people who need encouragement, and you care about
You know what choice I made. wink
God Bless, and smile, it could be contagious. blaugh
