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 education, than money, then 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 will 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 on 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.
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 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
I like this. I've loved Swindoll's writings ever since I read his book Come Before Winter (which introduced me to the term "sweating the small stuff". And this attitude thing is something that I need to remind myself every day, every hour. I try not to be but I'm a reactionary kind of person. If someone's nice, I'm nice. If someone snubs me, I snub them right back. But it's immature and doesn't do anything for me in terms of personal growth so I need to keep reminding myself that I'm in charge. I call the shots. I decide how I'm going to act and feel. Easier said than done but at least I have Swindoll's wise reminder to prop my spine back into place when it sags under the onslaught of unpleasant encounters.
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somebody's onto that "you go gal" supertude!!
ReplyDelete...and what are unpleasant encounters but a trifle matter in the grand scheme of things.
Keep the smart ones in check, and continue sweating the small stuff - whatever that might mean :)
It's actually don't sweat the small stuff! I don't know about any supertude but thanks for the encouragement. How do you deal with unpleasant encounters?
ReplyDeleteThe exact same Swindoll's saying's pasted on the front page of my favorite journal :-)
ReplyDeleteAlso, everything is small stuff. So no sweat! :P
Hey, what a coincidence, sundancer. But then it's so inspiring,isn't it? What's your fav journal btw? Sweat the small stuff and tell us :P
ReplyDeleteI do know the right way to react to noxious stimuli, but when something riles me, I usually react quickly, and in the wrong way. That gives me a lot of opportunity for self-censure later. Not a very healthy exercise, all in all. Small stuff becomes big sweat :p
ReplyDelete