Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Just a story of Choices

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, 'Dying'

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.'

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

You now have two choices!

6 comments:

  1. It's not easy. But I guess it could be habit forming. After all choosing fear and doubt is a habit right? Thanks for sharing this well written account. I will focus on the matter of choice for the rest of the weekend.

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  2. Outstanding story Corey! Thanks for sharing. It REALLY is that simple friends!

    Tim

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  3. What a very inspirational and motivating article Corey. And you have a wonderful friend indeed!

    A positive attitude IS everthing as you say. I enjoy getting up every morning and planning on doing 3 things that are positive and moving in a forward direction.

    Now sometimes I don't get all three things done. But it is on my mind and I am always thinking positive and forward!

    My son told me that his baseball coach was telling the team about positive attitude and keeping that positive attitude during practice, on the field and more important, off the field. My son told me that he said to his coach, "Coach, you sound just like my mom!".

    I hope that I can be as positive as your friend John and this certainly does validate and keeps me smiling. Sharing your experience and events of your friends awful accident, is moving, inspiring and memorable. I believe his positive attitude and mindset kept him alive and able to make it through everything he had to, to get better.

    Thank you very much for sharing Carey!

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  4. What an awesome Blog Corey! I loved his response to the allergy question!

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  5. Being in a bad mood - being in a good mood

    From where derives our state of mind? First of all from our thoughts based on the experiences in the past, brought to the present and instead of living in the present we are living today with what might happen tomorrow.

    When you can accept for yourself that the past is gone and you cannot change anything there than you will see the great chance of TODAY. Creating it the most shiny day ever. Enjoying in front of you a day which you can design according to your positive feelings.

    This also implements, being settled within yourself and being in a positive state of mind, the bad mood of the next will not touch you, as you understand that these feelings of the other one has nothing to do with you, it does not take part of your life.

    You will be calm and while being calm the person in front of you will become peaceful too.

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  6. Great story Corey, just shows that the right mind set can do wonders and I really liked reading about it.

    As a recommendation, you should put some social media sharing buttons (but I'm tweeting this anyway)

    Amazing read, glad to be friends on APSense!

    ~Sergio Felix

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