Unstick Your Thoughts With Attitude

Hi Persuader,

I AM YOUR ATTITUDE!

I AM YOUR MASTER.
I can make you rise or fall.
I can make you a success or failure.
I can work for or against you.
I control your feelings and actions.
I can make your heart sing with happiness.
I can make you wretched, dejected, or morbid.
I can make you angry and resentful.
I can make you lonely, discouraged or depressed.
I can make you sick, listless.
I can be a shackle, heavy and burdensome.
I can be a prism’s hue, dancing bright and colorful.
I can be nurtured and grown to be beautiful.
I can never be removed, only replaced.
I AM YOUR ATTITUDE! (author unknown)

We all have our “moments”. . . moments of doubt, moments of feeling blue, moments of road rage. The wide spectrum of human emotions is within us all-from bliss and joy to feelings of sorrow and misery. The key is to remember that emotions are choices.

We are not victims. We choose to have and to hold the thoughts and emotions we experience every day. And with that choice comes a responsibility. When someone cuts us off in traffic or is wildly inconsiderate, we can either give them the horn (or the finger) and follow them at an uncomfortably close range, or we can let it go and not allow it to stick.

This, admittedly, can be very difficult. It’s a crowded world. There are people who have no manners, who couldn’t care any less that you have been inconvenienced by their rudeness. And yet, that’s the way things will remain whether you choose to get angry and filled with rage, or whether you let it slip right off you like water slips off a duck.

Of course, there are moments when confrontation is necessary, but is it really necessary or worth it to confront over everything? Someone “steals” your parking spot. . . do you make a huge deal out of it, or do you continue on and find your own parking spot? I’ve had moments. . .moments of anger, but have come to realize that these moments are way less productive for me than a simple readjustment or enlarging of the frame through which I am looking at the situation.

One readjustment I recently heard about is this: say you’ve gotten yourself into one of these moments, an angry or enraged or sad moment, and you are sitting there stewing in it but don’t want to let it linger. As incongruous as this might feel, smile. Put a big fat grin on your face. Let those dimples come out.

In doing this, you are very consciously choosing to not stew. And you are also tricking yourself into feeling better. You are becoming the master of your attitude.

Think of the people that are inconsiderate or rude, not as people who are trying to screw up your day, but as people who are testing your resolve to have a good attitude.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland