They can because they think they can. – Virgil

Have you ever knew someone who got a new car and all the following week you saw loads of same kind everywhere? Did someone magically deposit those cars overnight? Did everyone see your friend’s car and decide to buy one for themselves? Or did you just start noticing a type of car that you never had reason to notice before.

You Have Two Choices

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply:
‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’ Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant.

Why？Because Jerry was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling him how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him：
‘I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?’

Jerry replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood.

I always choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it.
Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life.’
‘But it’s not always that easy,’ I protested.

‘Yes it is,’ Jerry said.
‘Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice.

You choose how you react to situations.
You choose how people will affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.
It’s your choice how you live your life.’

Several years later, I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business.  He left the back door of his restaurant open  And then in the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.  While Jerry trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him.

Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body….

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?’  I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

‘The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,’ Jerry replied.  ‘Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live.’

‘Weren’t you scared’ I asked?

Jerry continued, ‘The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine.

But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man. I knew I needed to take action.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,’ said Jerry. ‘She asked if I was allergic to anything.’  I mustered up all my strength and said ‘Yes, to bullets.’

Over their laughter, I told them: ‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’

‘Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I am sure they were inspired by his bravery and worked just that much harder to save him.

I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it.

The only thing that is truly yours – that no one can control or take from you – is your attitude,

so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

Now you have two choices to make:

1. You can ignore this message or
2. You can learn and apply the lessons from this story.

There is a Chinese story of an old farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped into the hills and, when all the farmer’s neighbours sympathised with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, ‘Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?’ 

A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbours congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, ‘Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?’ 

Then, when the farmer’s son was attempted to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, ‘Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?’ 

Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?