“How do you DO it?” she demanded. Her tone was a mix of incredulity and anger.\u00a0 I didn’t know what to say.\u00a0 I remained silent, anticipating she would tip her hand a bit further with the opportunity.\u00a0 Indeed, she did.<\/p>\n
“You are going through H@% and yet you just keep on.\u00a0 Every day I look at you expacting you to crash and burn and you just keep showing up.\u00a0 Apparently cheerful.\u00a0 You even seem happy.”\u00a0 I couldn’t help but note that her tone was more like an accusation than an accolade. But I waded in.<\/p>\n
“I AM happy.\u00a0 If circumstances determined my state of being and my attitude, I would have been dead long ago.\u00a0 I am not UNaware that my circumstances are unpleasant, to say the least.\u00a0 But I know this for sure – all I can control in these tumultuous times is my attitude.\u00a0 And I choose to embrace the day for the opportunities that it holds.\u00a0 Even in the obstacles there is opportunity.”<\/p>\n
Hurumpf.\u00a0 Or was it, “Humpf.”\u00a0 She finished our conversation with something about denial being a river in Egypt.\u00a0 And that was that.\u00a0 Each time I had to walk past her door between by enterprises, she made a point of looking quickly away.\u00a0 We didn’t have that conversation again, or any other.<\/p>\n
My apparent optimism in the midst of what everyone understood to be personal and public turmoil was almost offensive to this woman.\u00a0 She was given, herself, to fits of expressed anxiety and on days when anyone inquired after her health with, “How are you?” she took the inquiry to heart and answered with a complete list.\u00a0 Usually of what was wrong.<\/p>\n
A circumstance has its own story.\u00a0 And it will tell its own story whether I call it an opportunity or an obstacle.\u00a0 Just like a “DUE” date is its own requirement, a certain 24-hour period of time, whether I call it a deadline or a targeted completion date.\u00a0 It works better for me if I call it a targeted completion date.\u00a0 No surprise that it works better for me if I can manage to observe a thing as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.<\/p>\n
I expressed to a professional associate the other day that –<\/p>\n
“To possess an imagination means another way is always possible.”\u00a0 mar<\/p>\n
And these folks, with what are generally considered uplifting quotes, agree with that view –<\/p>\n
“We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be.\u00a0 And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumtions. ”\u00a0 Stephen Covey<\/p>\n
“Don’t let your history interfere with your destiny.\u00a0 Let today be the day you stop being a victim of your circumstances and start taking actions towards the life you want.”\u00a0 Steve Maraboli<\/p>\n
“Say YES to the whole catastrophe.”\u00a0 Joseph Campbell<\/p>\n
Rarely do you hear a speaker addressing a benchmark moment of their lives saying, “Yes, it was in the period of time when I was devastatingly rich, had the ideal mate and perfect children and the job that was completely satisfying and rewarding that I had the biggest lesson of my life.”\u00a0 Not the usual story.\u00a0 Those lessons come from (YOU choose) a) obstacles, b) opportunities.<\/p>\n
Which will you embrace today and how will you learn from it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“How do you DO it?” she demanded. Her tone was a mix of incredulity and anger.\u00a0 I didn’t know what to say.\u00a0 I remained silent, anticipating she would tip her hand a bit further with the opportunity.\u00a0 Indeed, she did. “You are going through H@% and yet you just keep on.\u00a0 Every day I look…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[359,10,362,361,356,360,358,357],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-joys","tag-joseph-campbell","tag-mary-anne-radmacher","tag-opportunities","tag-opportunity","tag-overcoming-obstacles","tag-stephen-covey","tag-steve-maraboli","tag-uplifting-quotes"],"yoast_head":"\n