Attitude: The Heart and Soul of Everything

Chuck Swindoll on the importance of attitude:

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 money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home, or an individual.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the 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 on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

“I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.” I completely agree with Mr. Swindoll on that one. How often do we compound a bad situation – making it much worse than it needs to be?  About as often as we make mountains out of ant hills!

Last night, I was lying in the floor with my cat Alexa – watching a little football and nursing a MAJOR toothache (my cooking marathon included about a gazilion Advils, two gazillion salty mouth rinses, and a couple billion, “Owwwww’s,” all of which did nothing – then I sat at the feast with my loved ones and couldn’t even eat!).  I heard my husband at his computer (which is in the middle of what surely must be a slow death).  After an ominous “restarting” sound from the computer, I heard my husband say something like, “Yes.  That’s what I was hoping you’d do.”

No throwing pens, no turning the air blue… just a little sarcastic jab at a machine that deserved much more.  I asked him if he was encouraging it now and he said it didn’t do any good to do anything else.

True enough.   I’ve said it many, many times on this blog – and even more times in my day to day life:  Sometimes you just have to say, “It is what it is. ”  It’s one of my most used phrases and, somehow, it always helps.  Another of my favorites is, “If this is the worst thing that happens to me this year, I’ve got it made.”

Bad, unsavory, and sometimes even ugly things are going to happen to us and around us.  And if you’re still waiting for life to be fair…. excuse me while I chuckle.  The amazing thing is, it’s well within our power to make these things worse or better.  “I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.”