The Attitude of Gratitude - 2/15/2009

I want to tell you a story I heard from a good friend of mine, Jim Madrid, the author of a great book, “Get Over it and Get On With It.”

A man was driving himself nuts because whenever he’d come home from work, he’d find his driveway full of bicycles, scooters, and miscellaneous toys.

Almost every day, he’d have to get out of his car, move the toys off to the side, then get back in the car and pull into the garage. He lectured his kids about picking up their toys. He even shouted at them a time or two. He offered them rewards, gold stars and special privileges.

Everything he tried worked for a while, but in a couple of days, it’d be a disaster area again. One evening, it was particularly bad. It was raining. Fuming and furious, my friend got out of the car and began throwing bikes, trikes, Barbie dolls and scooters onto the lawn.

Then, his neighbor, a retired man whose youngest son had just gotten married, walked over and began to give him a hand. My friend started to gripe about how sick he was of this daily cleanup, but his neighbor just smiled.

“Actually,” he said, “I kind of miss doing this. Maybe you should enjoy it while it lasts. Your kids are going to be grown up and gone before you know it. You won’t believe how fast it all goes.”

That was a moment of insight and focus for my friend. An important turning point, even though at the time it seemed small. From that day on, he says he has practiced feeling gratitude when he sees the driveway looking like an aisle at Toys-R-Us. As he puts it, “My neighbor taught me an important lesson, and I’m just grateful I was open enough to hear it.

My kids are still with me, but not for long. I want to treasure the time we still have left. And kids, bless their hearts, are just natural-born slobs.” I love that story.

A situation that was causing ongoing frustration and anger was completely transformed, and not a single thing changed except my friend’s attitude.

The value of an experience, any experience, is up to you. When something bad, even something really terrible happens, you can react as you may have been conditioned to react, with defeat, frustration, helplessness, hopelessness and anger.

Or you can decide that you will salvage something from the loss. If you’re having an experience that you are not enjoying, you can try to change it, if you can, and if you can’t, you can choose to learn from it and grow.

What you allow yourself to think about an experience determines the effect that it is going to have on you. You are not helpless. Things are not hopeless. Tough times don’t last. Tough people do. And you can make whatever you choose to make this meeting, this market, this year, and your entire life whatever you want it to be.

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