ATTITUDE
by Charles Swindall
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my 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 everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the 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 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.
Where do we find the inner strength to keep our attitudes positive and respond to life’s difficulties with virtue?
Surely, we all see that Christians, Muslims, Hindus…all fail at times, all fall short. Do they possess an inner power that I do not? I cannot see the evidence for it.
I live a virtuous life, and yet the one temptation that faces me, which I have heretofore only skirted around, is a temptation that I do not know that I have the inner strength to resist forever; if I do not resist this temptation, I will have to live with a secret, deceive, and if I fail to keep the lies, lose my family. It is the pain of virtue versus selfish desire. It is a timeless, transcendent phenomenon, across all cultures and religions. It is a temptation that all religious men, and all non-religious men, have or will face during marriage. And for now, I am stronger than it is.