Change Your Attitude – Change Your Destiny
“Know Thyself” – Plato
We don’t know when we are going to die, and we don’t get to decide how it will happen.
Unfortunately, we are dying from the day we are born. The question to ask isn’t “When are we going to die?” but “How are we going to live before we die?” Remember the saying, “We are not alive if we are not living.”
Too many people die with their music still in them. In other words, they fail to live life to the fullest. Whatever we believe about what happens after death, we must live intentionally here on Earth.
Change Your attitude – Live in the Present
To do that, we must live in the present. Too many of us live in the past or the future and then miss out on the present. We lose out on today. If we aren’t doing something today because of what happened to us in the past or something we inherited at birth, then we are living in the past and not the present. Just because something was true in the past and limited us in some way doesn’t mean that it has to limit us today.
Let’s say that you had a bad childhood and find that it limits you today. Why would that be? For example, if your father beat you when you were nine years old, what has that got to do with today? We must learn to leave the past behind because it’s history and we can’t do anything about it. We only have the power to change the present. You can’t change the beating you received or the feelings you felt then, but you can change the way it affects you today.
Likewise, we can’t live in the future, giving up today for tomorrow. When we do, we lose today. Some people who are unhappy today feel that they will be happy when an event happens in the future.
For example, consider marriage: Frank who is single is unhappy because he’s single. He laments that he’ll be happy when he’s married. Years later he marries Becky, but he’s still unhappy and laments that he’ll only be happy when he gets divorced.
Your Attitude Determines Your Happiness
People who think like this never live in the present, only in the future. They give away today for the belief that they will be happy later. Generally, these people will always be unhappy in their current circumstances, no matter what they may be.
As so often is the case, some people are unhappy because their happiness depends on something outside of themselves, on other people or events. We need to learn how to be happy now, no matter what we’re doing or what’s going on in our lives. If we’re unhappy, we can take steps to make ourselves happy.
The quickest and easiest way is to think of what we’re grateful for. No matter what our circumstances, we can always be thankful for something.
This is an excerpt from Bruce’s book “Attitude Determines Destiny”.
As a motivational speaker, he conducts seminars and workshops based upon the ideas in his book. He entertains and inspires audiences wherever he goes.
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