Reminders: Attitude is Everything

A medical study conducted in Denmark with 607 patients who had heart disease, indicated that participants with more positive attitudes were 58 percent more likely to live at least another five years.  It may have been partly because they were also more likely to be more active.  A positive attitude may not only extend one’s life, but it can make the living or it more pleasant.  “A happy person is not a person with a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”––John Maxwell

How we view a situation, another person, or a person’s actions determines how we will respond to them.  As the widely attributed “law of the instrument” puts it, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”  Negative attitudes lead to negative responses.  A positive attitude may not change the world, but it will change us as well as the people around us in positive ways. 

In a class called “Adventures in Attitudes,” I discovered a truth that changed my life.  That is: “You can’t change another person.  You can only change your attitude about them.”  I also learned that a person’s worst traits are often just their best traits misapplied, e.g. If a person is stubborn, they are also likely to stick with any task they undertake until it is done.  For everything that irritates us about a person there is often an opposite and equal trait we admire.  Concentrating on a person’s admirable qualities can keep us from feeling and acting irritated around them.  It can make our own life, and the lives of those around us, better.

When we think of how Jesus treated other people, even those who persecuted Him, we realize that He thought of Himself as a humble servant even though others called him “Master”.  That is hardly the way most of us like to think of ourselves, yet a little humility and goodwill toward others can go a long way toward leading a peaceful and productive life.  Philippians 2:5 states: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.”  In other words, let Jesus be your guide.  Think and do as He did.  Look for the goodness in people and forgive their flaws.