ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

........By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

I can't remember who posted this beautiful story to the Hodgkin's List, but I'm sure they won't mind my sharing it with all of you.



Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good

mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask

him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would

be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had

followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the

waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural

motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there

telling the employee 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! You can't be a positive person

all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I

wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You

can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad

mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad

happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it.

I 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 choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not 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. The bottom line: It's your choice

how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the

restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often

thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting

to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are

never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door

open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers.

While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness,

slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him.

Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local

trauma center. 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. Wanna 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, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I

could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" 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 expressions 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, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said

Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The

doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply... I

took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I

told them, 'I am choosing to live. 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 learned from him that every day we have the

choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

You have 2 choices now:

1. save or delete this mail from your mail box.

2. forward it to your dear ones and choose to pass this on

I hope you will choose choice 2.

Last updated July 23, 1997.