It really IS your choice!

Your attitude is your choice. It always is. We live in an age that has developed the art of shifting blame to very high levels, and sometimes we get caught up in that same tendency.
"Well, if you had my job you wouldn't be so positive."
"If you had my kids, you wouldn't feel so good."
"If only my boss were different, I could be a positive person."
In other words, "My bad attitude is not my fault!"
The truth is, however, your attitude and mine are always our choice. No matter how bad things are, no one can force you to have a bad attitude if you don't want to. Now that should come as really good news because it says our attitudes don't have to be victims of our circumstances or of other people. We choose our responses. Mary Whelchel

I don't need to expound. How good - and true! - is this statement?! I don't need to expound but of course I will a little bit. :)
It all comes down to choice doesn't it? We really do get a choice about our attitudes. Nobody holds authority over them but us. So if my attitude is sour that indicates I made the choice - consciously or not - to let the circumstances of the moment sour my mood. If, on the other hand, my attitude is upbeat despite the circumstances of the moment then the indication is I made the choice - consciously or not - to not allow my attitude to be hijacked.
Don't give people or circumstances so much authority over your life and your moods! Why do "they" get to dictate you? They don't! You have a choice! Make the healthy one.

Comments

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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