Attitude
~ by Charles Swindoff
"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on 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
every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot
change our 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 one 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 Attitude."
My thoughts on the subject of
Attitude
After all these years (48) I have come to realize how important *Attitude* is.
It is more important than money, than what other people think or say, than
appearance. It is a direct correlation of our education, our circumstances,
our failures, our successes, and our past and how we were brought up in life.
The pride and morality of our parents, friends, church leaders, community
leaders, teachers, and other role models, reflect in our attitude and how we
approach life and the way we treat others. In our society today, with broken
homes, single parents, and children without homes, attitude has become an asset
of the few and an excuse of the many. Without truely respected role models our
children and their generation have grown to honor little and dishonor themselves
and our society. Where these children watch violence and immorality on television
everyday and take it as a given and standard operating procedure, setting them
on the path to proper attitude is a job no one wants or is willing to take. With
the decline of the church and the whole family unit, one of our last bastions of
hope is our public schools. And with more and more sanctions of non-involvement
and distancing themselves from responsibilities and legal ramifications of such,
they have had their hands tied, and are no longer the fortress that we had in our
childhood.
Our attitude today as adults has become one of reacting to how we are treated and
how our children treat us. When the golden rule is mentioned in the presence of
todays children, they have very little understanding, if any as to the meaning of
the concept. They have been taught to be selfish and selfcentered by our willingness
to provide them with the things that we did not have as children. When they do not
get what they want, they react with the only tools at their disposal... Emotional
outbursts and no concept of earning or deserving that which they desire. For so
many of them wanting something and not getting it is tantamount to reducing our
reasoning to our not caring about them. Where all this is going is just to say
that our attitude today has been focused as never before in history. We as an older
generation have the knowledge and upbringing to tolerate and understand these things.
However this younger generation of children have no base of morality or experience
to work from, nor to grow and tolerate bad attitudes as we do. We must take the time
and patience and touch these children with our understanding and hopefully bring
about a better attitude in them and by doing so, one in ourselves.
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