(FROM MY BOOK) "The following saying from an unknown author is very appropriate: “There are two days in every week about which we should not worry - two days which should be kept free from an apprehension. One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares, its aches and pains, its faults and blunders. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said; yesterday is gone! The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. Tomorrow also is beyond our immediate control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise! Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is as yet unborn. That leaves only one day - today. Any man can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of these two awful eternitiesyesterday and tomorrow, that we break down! It is not the experience of today that drives men mad, it is remorse or biterness for something which happened yesterday, and dread of what tomorrow will bring. Let us, therefore, journey but one day at a time!” **************** Dr. Robert Schuller, minister, author, and lecturer on positive thinking, told a story in Insight about his father and how his father’s attitudes have remained with him to this day. Schuller, born and raised on a farm in Iowa in the 1930s, lived during a very difficult time for farmers. In one year, his father would normally harvest 10 wagons of corn from their farm, but in one particularly bad year his father harvested only half a wagon. Schuller remembers his father’s feelings at the time this way: “I’ll never forget how, that night, seated at the dinner table, his calloused hands folded in prayer, my father looked up and thanked God. He said, ‘I thank you, God, that I have lost nothing, I got a half a wagon load back. I have regained the seed I planted in the springtime.’ “His attitude of gratitude was that he had lost nothing.” In another example of his father’s “Attitude of Gratitude,” Schuller tells of the time a tornado hit their home without any warning, and how they all managed to escape in the family car without harm, but the tornado did destroy all nine of their buildings on the farm. The next night at a gathering in the country church he heard his father pray: “Oh God, I thank you that not a life was lost, not a human bone was broken. We have lost nothing that cannot be recaptured, regained and replaced. And through the storm, oh God, we have kept everything that would have been irreplaceable - the lives of the children and our own faith.” His father’s “Attitude of Gratitude” is what drove this man to rebuild aggressively and with a conviction, when other men might have collapsed emotionally under the circumstances. This type of upbringing stays with a person for the rest of his life. Your convictions and outlook can shape another’s personality. So be careful of how you display yourself to others. Negative attitudes can ruin someone else’s life. Positive attitudes can help to promote someone into greatness. Your attitudes, one way or another, will change another person’s life forever. C=2005 John Paul Carinci The Power of Being Different amazon/Power-Being-Different-success-ebook/dp/B002C75GY4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297550537&sr=1-1
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 02:29:46 +0000
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