Are you a positive person? You should be happy for yourself.
Are you a negative person? You should feel sorry for yourself.
We are certainly not here to judge, to pontificate or preach about who you are. You are who you are, and that is a wonderful thing. Indeed you are a magnificent human being who has come a long way to reach the spot where you are presently standing. And it is a rather good spot, isn’t it? You have had your losses and your gains, you have laughed and cried, you have experienced joy and sorrow — many, many times — so far. Your life has been full of so many experiences, you have met people you still remember and others you have forgotten, some situations have manifested that you were able to deal with gracefully, others… not so gracefully. All what you have gone through until now has contributed to make you who you are. You might affirm, and believe it, that what happened to you made you what you have become. It is undeniable that how your life has been unfolding throughout all these years has had a remarkable importance in the way you see the world and in how now you face each day. But there is an “ingredient” that always has a great weight. It is your attitude.
Remember the well-known funny, surrealistic question, “Who was born first, the chicken or the egg?” Is it what happens that determines your mood or is it your mood that is at the origin of what happens? You will certainly say that it is the former, won’t you? Yes, it really seems so. An accident you are involved in will make you angry. Couldn’t it also be that your mood (nervousness, worry…) made your driving less careful, your senses less prompt to react to the other driver’s mistake? Therefore, was it your negative attitude that, although indirectly, caused what happened? It seems to be a vicious circle, where it’s not easily detectable “which is the cause of what!”
As usual, there are no “rules” here. Nothing is ever totally right or wrong, the scales are always slightly unbalanced, rising and falling first on one side, then on the other. The important thing is to keep a “reasonable” and acceptable balance. Never too much, never too little of anything.
In addition, your attitude determines how others perceive you. You don’t care about how people see you? Well, you should, because the way they judge you could be a good indication of your most intimate state of being. I often say (and truly believe) that what you think about yourself is more important than what others think about you, but this doesn’t mean that the opinion of others is worthless. On the contrary, in certain cases it can be a useful means to understand a little more about yourself, especially when you tend to move through life “blindfolded,” unaware of what is actually going on in the deepest part of your being.
A positive attitude makes you feel good about yourself and the world, it fills you with the expectation of good things. A negative attitude deprives you of most of the joy that can be experienced in life and prepares you to face only unpleasant circumstances. Difficult times happen to everybody, therefore it is only fair that they occur to you as well. But the attitude you face them with determines your mood, day by day, minute by minute. In a nutshell, attitude greatly influences the way you live your life. Am I giving an answer to a question that I previously said to be debatable? (i.e. does attitude determine what happens or is what happens that determines moods?). You are free to decide for yourself. I personally prefer to choose to be happily positive rather than unhappily negative, independently from what actually happens.
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