It has been said that your attitude determines your altitude. I believe this with all my heart. I have seen many examples of how a good attitude makes life so much better.
Please forgive the personal reference, but I want to share my own story about how attitude can really make a difference. At age 19 I was burned very badly over much of my body in a serious c
ar accident when the gas tank on my VW bug caught on fire. I spent months in the hospital getting skin graphs. One patient in the hospital with me was a 16- year-old boy who was burned severely on one whole side of his body while camping. He put the wrong kind of kerosene into the gas bottle for his portable stove and it exploded.
This young man was in the room next to me and was angry at the world because of what had happened to him. He yelled at the nurses and doctors constantly, swearing obscenities and complaining that no one was serving him fast enough or could do anything right. It was really annoying for me, being one room away from his. I cannot imagine what the nurses felt like. Sadly, this boy died just four months later. When my doctor came to check on me the next day I expressed my concern about why this boy had died — after all, I was burned twice as badly as he was. The doctor told me, “he didn’t have to die!” Tightening the grip on my arm to impress upon me what he was about to say (my arm was the only place on my body that wasn’t burned), he said, “this young man chose to die. He chose not have anything to live for.” This was one of my first great lessons in positive-attitude building.
Many years have passed since that discussion with my doctor. I recovered, went on to earn college degrees and have a successful career. I am married and have five children and they all have children of their own. So I have some authority to speak about attitude. Because of that experience with the other burn victim, I chose to do just the opposite of him. I made every effort to be nice to the nurses. I chose daily to be positive and think about how well things could possibly turn out. I look back on difficult times in my life where I had the hardest time being positive, but I did it anyway. I chose to have a good attitude. And I have taught my children that your attitude will definitely determine how well you achieve most anything of value.
Today I can see that anything I have accomplished of worth is directly connected to my positive attitude. I am sure if I had not witnessed this 16 year-old boy myself, I could just as easily have chosen to have a bad attitude at many turning points in my life.
Your attitude determines your altitude! I hope you will take assessment of your own life and determine where it needs adjustment, financially, in your relationships, physically, and emotionally.
