From: Myrahalsey@aol.com [mailto:Myrahalsey@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 6:04 PM
To: bahalsey@verizon.net; david@coronariversidehomes.com; jeff_halsey@toyota.com; qstitcher@hotmail.com; jess46290@yahoo.com; vhvw@siouxvalley.net; BerthaLigt@presto.com
Subject: (no subject)
READ
THIS
LET IT
REALLY SINK IN - THEN
CHOOSE .
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.' Matthew 6:34.
After all today is
the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
You have two choices
now:
01. Delete
this
02. Forward it
to the people you care about.
You know the choice
I made.
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