10 Decisions for a Good Attitude

By: Doug Samples, SNU Professional and Graduate Studies Chaplain

My therapist tells me that I live in a dream world!

Since I have chosen to love life and approach each new day with a positive and happy spirit, he suggests that I may have lost touch with reality!

Fact is, I am reminded of reality every time I see…

… another mass shooting

… another angry, negative, mean-spirited person

… another abused child or spouse

… another tornado, hurricane or earthquake

… another person of power bullying someone.

In spite of all the evil and brokenness of our world, I have decided that the best way to respond to all this negativity is to surrender my days to God and let His security hold me steady… and blessed.. and positive with a great attitude to face daily challenges!

These are ten decisions I believe we need to make to have a great attitude:

How do you deal with the storms of life? How do you respond when all the demands of life push you into a corner? Are you Garfield or Odie? Pooh or Eeyore? Calvin or Hobbs?

I don’t believe that our attitudes have to be based on the messy, up-and-down circumstances of any given day. I try my best to set my Default Mode on “Positive” and leave it there all day.

Am I successful in these efforts every day? Absolutely not!

However, when I have set my internal compass to Positive North, it’s a lot easier to re-center myself when life throws me off.

Over the next few weeks, I would love to have an ongoing conversation about our attitudes. Do we have the freedom to choose our attitudes? How do we do that?

As we go through these weekly conversations, I’d love to hear from you.

I wish this could be a two-way conversation.

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Got questions?

Email Chaplain Samples directly at dsamples@snu.edu.