The top of my home page reads, Is your attitude affecting your circumstances… or are you allowing your circumstances to affect your attitude? But, what do I really mean by this?
I remember one Sunday I was at church, and this was around the time I really started enjoying going to church (instead of just going because it was the right thing to do). Worship was great and the service awesome as usual, then all of the sudden the guy who walked up onto stage wasn’t our normal pastor. It was some guy who had a dry voice and all I was thinking was this is gonna be a snooze-fest. I didn’t feel like listening to this guy because it was going to be horrible, it’s not what I wanted to hear so I zoned him out. I would sporadically tune back in for 10 – 15 seconds at a time to see if he could catch my attention, but I knew this dry boring voice wouldn’t be able to anyways. Until one moment I just so happened to stop drawing on my bulletin and playing games on my phone to give this guy another 10 second chance and I’ll never forget what he said, “Life is 90% your attitude, and 10% what happens to you.” I have always heard things about attitude this attitude that, but never really gave them much thought, but for some reason this stuck. I instantly thought, holy crap, my attitude has been horrible towards this guy for majority of this message, and that explains why I’m so bored and to be honest kinda mad it’s not the normal pastor. I walked out of that message with a huge smile on my face!
That moment has seriously changed my look at life. Something didn’t go the exact way I wanted it to, so I got mad. Something wasn’t what I wanted so I zoned it out and didn’t give it a chance. Let me tell you one thing, moments like that are a WASTE OF YOUR LIFE. And we all know life could end in a second, so it’s way too short to waste. And here’s the thing, situations are always going to be coming up in your life that don’t go as you planned or hoped (as I’m sure everyone already knows) so how are you going to react, there is really only two options. You can say “This sucks! Why me?” you can dwell on that moment and spend this short period of time we call life a miserable wreck! … Or you could approach it with “Wow, this isn’t what I was expecting, but am I going to let this circumstance determine my short period of time on this earth?” How can you make sure you leave with a smile on your face?
And here is what I do understand… there are some excruciating circumstances in some people’s life that I cannot imagine, but when you get a wound once again you only have 2 options. You can sit around and let that wound rot away at you, get infected and ruin your life or you can patch it up, go to the doctors and do whatever you have to make it right. Your circumstances will give you options, but your attitude will determine the outcome!
The greatest movie of all time demonstrates this perfectly. The Lion King. After Rafiki hits Simba in the head Simba cries out “What’d you do that for!?” Rafiki responds by saying “It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past.” “Yeah, but is still hurts” says Simba and Rafiki’s response nails it “Oh yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it you can either run from it, or learn from it” and as Rafiki swings at him again Simba ducked, and learned from it!
I could go on and on about this topic (and lion king!) but what it really comes down to is this, Is your attitude affecting your circumstances… or are you allowing your circumstances to affect your attitude?
Thanks for reading! Much LOVE!
