Attitude

Do you want to feel great in the morning when you wake up?  Do you want to have more friends and fun?  Would you like to do better in school, sports or other activities?  Do you want your parents, brothers, and sisters to treat you differently?

One of the things you can do to make it happen is to change your attitude!

Attitude is the way we feel about ourselves, something, or someone else.  Because it shapes how we react to the things that happen to us, it has the power to change our lives –for better or for worse. The great thing is that your attitude is your choice. You can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can decide how you react.  That choice is always yours.

We will succeed at some things and, likely, fail at others.  We will make friends; others will ignore or dislike us, sometimes for reasons we don’t understand.  We work hard to look our best, but most of us are unhappy about some feature or trait that we cannot change.  Attitude is how we feel about those things, which leads to what we will do about them.

Posture and body position communicate our attitude.  People who walk with their head down and shoulders slumped appear to have a defeatist attitude.  If you walk quickly, head up, smile on your face, it reflects an attitude of joy and self-confidence.  When we want to make a change, it can start with something as simple, and yet difficult, as changing our posture and gait.  It’s hard to be angry or hurt, if you have a smile on your face and a swing in your walk.

Mahatma Gandhi, a famous Indian activist and leader of the non-violent Indian independence movement said, “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”  Perhaps we should add, “What a man does, changes his thoughts.”

Maya Angelou, a famous poet said it better — “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

The message is the same — a great attitude will very likely lead to a great life.