Money, Life, Attitude

I am not affected by

Events.

I am affected by

How I choose to respond to

Events.

-S. Stallone

One of the most painful memories of my dad was watching his mother and father die, while he was a teenager. It was not at the same time. It was several years apart from the same horrible disease.
That same disease is almost unknown in the United States today.

What my grandparents died from was TB or Pulmonary Tuberculosis. In the 1930’s it was know as the “Great White Plague” or Consumption. It was a time before Antibiotics. Over 70% of those who contracted the disease died. Treatment and death was quite painful, both for the victim and the family members who looked on.

It was a time in my fathers life that he would not talk to any of his children. I remember seeing the pain in his eyes, at 60 standing over his mother’s grave in almost tears.

I only found out how my grandfather and grandmother from my dad’s cousins. It was with them that he lived, after they died. You see my dad was in his mid teens when had to endure such pain. Pain that I never had to go through. Pain I never knew about until I was in my 30’s at family reunion.

It was there one of my dad’s cousins and I was watching my dad and another cousin talk. She told me to store how this cousin of my dad took him under his wing, after my grand parents died.

She even told me how the family tried to keep my dad his brother and sister together. Each one could not stand looking at the other because when they saw their siblings all they saw was their parent’s dying a most painful death.

Maybe? Could it be us grandkids were affected? Could it be why we run from pain? Could it be a contributing factor in why we don’t see each other? Why we are not close at all?

Here it is almost 80 years later. The result of that painful memory still exists. It has defeated almost two full generations. Maybe it is time to turn that painful memory around.

I could not help but notice the back of his hand as he swiped his debt card in the machine, to pay for the groceries. Then I looked down at the back of my hand. The back of my hand was almost as old and wrinkled as the elderly gentleman who was in front of me buying his groceries.

Where have the years gone? I am only 55! I don’t feel 55. My biceps still bulge. I don’t have a big gut or any back problems.

Still the years have gone so quickly. All the abuse to my body and brain have left minimal scaring. It was all those around me who suffered. Many of those very same people who today will not talk to me.

Often I wish I could of have acted differently. Schooling, friends, and family I can not think of anyone who I have not any regrets in the way I treated them.

Maybe I should set out on a mission like Earl. Make a list of those I have wrong and proceed to make things right. It would take the rest of my few short years on this planet just to make that list.

Maybe I should just start treating people the way I want to be treated. Then for those who will not talk to me, I will pray for a day of reconciliation.

Failure is only temporary. It does not have to be a life script. The real trick is to pick yourself up, and look straight ahead and move forward. This means looking at what you did wrong and how you can do it differently.   

by: Charles Swindol

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, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, 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.

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.

A few month ago, I got the audio version of As A Man Thinketh. It is written by James Allen. Allen insists upon the power of the individual to form his own character and to create his own happiness.

Thought and character are one, he says, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within him that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.

You can get your copy of As A Man Thinketh for EFCussins Store.