Attitude, People!!

I have been thinking a lot lately of how we act/react to people, and the things that trigger those things. We have seen the protests, the riots, the pandemic stuff, and people have a lot of reactions to all of it. I see a lot of people that know it all, some that are condescending about all of it, and those that are paying attention yet keeping the comments to a minimum as they ponder what they see. And nobody is really in the wrong, but nobody is exactly right either. How you react to things is uniquely your own thing. What do I do? It’s been a lot of pondering lately, as I prefer to pick and choose what battles I want to participate in or stay away from. That has come with age, not some magic pill. It’s an attitude and it’s mine.

I try to be more positive about things, if I can find a way to do so. I spent a lot of time being negative in my younger years, not overly so, but enough that I bugged myself. I didn’t like it, so I found ways to swing it around. Life will throw you more reasons to be a Negative Nelly, so you have to decide to look for the good things. What I have noticed in my situation is that when I turned that corner, I started noticing and being around more positive people. They find me, I find them. The law of attraction, I guess? When that happened, things got better. I couldn’t explain it any other way if I tried. Good things happen when you look for good things.

Now, life will still throw crud at you. But what changes is how you deal with it. If you keep your negative barrier around you, you will sink a little every time something bad happens. It will drag you with it. A lot of that surprised me when I noticed it, because we all know those people, that every little thing devastates their life. Some things are big, and should affect you, but when it becomes every little hangnail or whatever, and the pity party starts, you just sunk a little lower.

About 120 years ago, or when I was in my 20s, I took the Dale Carnegie class. My employer sent a few of us to it, and at the time, it seemed like a waste of his money and my time. I was truly about 23 or 24 years old, and dumb as a post. I hadn’t learned much in life yet, but I had experienced some things that made me more negative in life so I wasn’t really ready for some of the stuff in that class. I was good at putting on that happy persona, coming across as happy, but I really wasn’t so much, as I look back. There’s a lot I missed at the time, but I still have “The Golden Book” from that class, which is a little pamphlet type thing that summarizes the principles of the course. It’s been a good little resource for me sometimes, which they said it would be, and I will be darned if they weren’t right!!

The one principle I have used over and over through the years is from “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” which is one of the “Fundamental Principles for Overcoming Worry.”

How To Face Trouble: Ask yourself “What is the worst that can possibly happen?” Prepare to accept the worst. Try to improve on the worst.

You would be amazed at how doing those 3 little things can change your attitude about a potentially bad or sad situation. Doing those three little things can help you, which in turn can help others through a tough spot. Attitude, it can make for break a situation.

Through the last few months with the ‘Rona causing havoc everywhere, I did this with my employment situation. And in 3 months, I have prepared for the worst, which was being unemployed, I got ready to potentially be unemployed for a while, and I improved on that situation, and never spent more than a day unemployed as a result. I kept my attitude about it positive that something good would happen, and it did. A couple of the more positive people I have met in my life reached out to me, and I had the Costco opportunity and now the opportunity to work at a growing company, Security Luebke Roofing, working with positive people who want to see me succeed. I improved my worst case scenario. I should have paid more attention in my 20s, I may have gotten here sooner.

They say opposites attract, and while that is true, Positive Energy attracts Positive Energy. That is more powerful, and it is within reach if you just tweak a couple of things in how you approach tough situations. It won’t work every time, and you will still always have challenges that may frustrate you. But if what you have been doing isn’t improving things, why stick with that when you can try something positive? See how that goes, just once even, and look for a positive outcome. You may just amaze yourself. I did, and now I have weekends off.