ATTITUDE

I will be the first to admit that when I've failed in life, I've caused my own failures. My attitude hasn't always been a positive one- whenever-I've spent time in my life focusing on the negative rather than the positive, which were the limitations rather than the potential. I was missing what I had. Though I've been blessed with many gifts, but it's up to me to use them or not to my benefit. If I don't, I'm pretty much wasting my time on this planet. I can't tell you when the change occurred, or where, or how. It's been a long process, and I've to keep on working at it in order to keep it going. I've learned through reading, watching people, and asking questions that my world is what I make it.

I always saw this as something that was so easy to say, because people who had their acts together always said it. Because at that time, I didn't have my act together as I was selfish and egotistic, thinking that I have no liabilities and had my successful retirement. But basically I was miserable. I was missing the happiness of the family and grand children which I have now, given to me by the fellowship and by the promises of AA 12 step program and leading to change in my attitude from negative to positive.

Now with a positive attitude and sobriety given to me by the fellowship I needed, I have an obligation under step 12 to give it back to the fellowship. It took me a while to realize that by focusing on the negative things in my life, I was perpetuating them, and as I slowly began to shift my focus to the positive, I found that life became more and more positive. Eventually, I became one of the people who say that it's your attitude more than anything else that determine how your life goes.

When I started to change my attitude, I started to see that life doesn't determine who I am or how happy or unhappy I am--life doesn't care. The world is impersonal. But I care, and I prefer to be positive and happy. I'm much better to myself when I am, and I'm much better for others when I am.

Our attitude tells the world what we expect in return. If it's a cheerful, expectant attitude, it says to everyone with whom we come in contact that we expect the best in our dealings with the world. You see, we tend to live up to our expectations. And others give to us, as far as their attitudes are concerned, what we expect. Our attitude is something we can control. We can establish our attitude each morning when we start our day--in fact, we do just that, whether or not we realize it. And the people in our family--all the people in our world--will reflect back to us the attitude we present to them. It is, then, our attitude toward life that determines life's attitude toward us. Everything we say or do will cause a corresponding effect. If we're cheerful, glad to be experiencing this miracle of life, others will reflect that good cheer back to us.

You always have a choice, even if it is only a choice of your attitude, positive or negative. Positive anything is better than negative nothing. Positive thinking won't let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching?
If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want. Some one wrote that I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street; I met a man who had no feet. If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one. Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~Winston Churchill

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectively, he must think clearly; to act nobly, he must think nobly. Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. As soon as you recognize that you are able to control your thoughts happiness will come within your reach. The life each of us lives is the life within the limits of our own thinking. To have life more abundant, we must think in limitless terms of abundance. If you want to change your life, change your mind. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. The only disability in life is a bad attitude. My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. Just because you're miserable doesn't mean you can't enjoy your life. When you are in conflict with some one, there is one factor that can make a difference between damaging and deepening a relationship and that factor is your attitude. Having a positive mental attitude is asking how something can be done rather saying it cannot be done. The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

A non-doer is very often a critic-that is, someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It's easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. ----Buddha.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have. Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

The greatest discovery is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

We become the kind of people others enjoy being around by living the life according to 12 step program.