Importance of Attitude
I was attending a seminar about "Importance of Attitude" in Sydney and picked up a lecture note.
Let me quote the anonymous writer:
"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than fact. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, intelligence or skill. It will make or break a company, a church or a home."
"The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. 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 to play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."
"I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happen to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. You are in charge of your attitude."
This means that no matter what happens to you, it is how you react or respond to it, that is the most important attitude.
You can't control or influence certain events in life-earthquake, sabotage, terrorist bombings, being struck by lightning, a freak traffic accident and so on. But you can control how you think and feel about such incidents, even when you are the unfortunate victim of an accident.
You can choose to moan and groan about your misfortune, about what you have lost physically or financially. Or you can choose to count your blessings that you are still alive, that you have most of your physical or mental faculties. A prolonged negative attitude would make you miserable and regressive whereas a change to a positive attitude would spur you to think of possibilities.
You could be taunted or discriminated against if you lost a leg, arm or an eye. You can't help some insensitive people doing such things. If you fret over that is said and what has been deprived of you, does it make you any happier, determined, persevering or resourceful?
The right attitude to take is not to let insults, sarcasm, rudeness, ridicule or mockery bother you. Why respond negatively to such behaviors of other people? It doesn't pay to strike back contemptuously at them. If you do, you are showing that you are emotionally weaker.
Show that you are emotionally stronger, that you do not have to trade insults with insults, that what they say or do does not bother you at all. Show the dignity that they do not have.
The pain is not in what he insensitive people say about you or do to belittle you. The pain is in how you interpret and react to such acts.
If you choose to regard people's actions as sadistic and emotionally hurtful, then you would feel the pain. If you describe people's behavior as "sick", you could be sick yourself or allowing yourself to be as sick as them, if not more.
Very often, we negatively over-react to, or "read" too much into, what people say or do. It's a case of seeing what we want to see, regarding an issue as big when it could really be insignificant.
Even if people in reality are downright inhuman, you can choose to ignore their behavior or not view it negatively at all. That is real self mastery. We can feel much better when we know the importance of attitude.
Losing a part of the body is not the end of life. It might be the end of a career that you were trained in and the beginning of a new career but again, it might not. If the famous Stephen Hawking can speak through a computer gadget, if a golfer can still play with a metal arm, then a trainer who loses both legs or arms can still find some other ways to teach.
When you lose hope, when you despair, when you blame people all the time, when you do not even want to try and persevere, then you choose to make life meaningless for yourself.
What is the value of intellect, imagination, education, knowledge, wisdom, experience, competence and talent if you adopt a negative attitude every day?
You need to have positive attitude everyday. The world will change too when you choose positive attitude. You will see the importance of attitude when you do this.
To expand on what the writer in the church leaflet said, attitude can make or break a person. Either you are in charge of or you lose charge of your attitude. This is the importance of attitude.
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