There is an old story about a king who had a close friend. The ally always looked at the positive side of life. To anything that happened, he would say, “It was for the good.” One day, the king accidentally cut his thumb. His friend, as expected, said there was something good in it. The king, who was in a lot of pain, lost his temper and sent his friend to jail.
A few months later, the king went to hunt and got lost in the woods. He was held captive to be offered as a sacrifice to greedy gods. However, as the one leading the sacrifice was putting his act together, he noticed that the king’s thumb was conspicuously missing.
Being superstitious, he felt that this would be an incomplete sacrifice. It would attract the rage of gourmand gods. Therefore, he set the king free. When the king went back to his palace, he thought about his friend’s remark that everything happens for good and felt remorseful for jailing him.
He went to his friend and apologised profusely. The king said to his friend, “You were right. It was because I lost my thumb in that accident that I am alive and kicking today. I also feel bad that I sent you to jail in vain.” The friend said, “No, it was for good.” The king wanted to know what was good about it. His friend replied, “If you had not sent me to jail, I would have accompanied you to that hunting spree, and today I would have been the one to be sacrificed.”
As a penman, I can press the pause button and pose a question, what is the moral of the story? If you analyse it, you will see optimism in it. The tale directs us towards focusing on the positive side of life. Pantheon of philosophers said perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. Then, in Romans 8:28, Apostle Paul of Tarsus penned: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Shiv Khera, in his heroic book titled You can achieve more, postulates: “We cannot always change the circumstances, nor can we change reasons of seasons, but we can change ourselves.” Always blaming others is a big mistake. Some things happen that are beyond our control. Therefore, we have to take them as they come.
In that regard, change of attitude is quite important. Once we change our attitude – mindset plus belief – we stop playing the blame game. When we address the real problem, in our own thinking, we find that life – physically, financially and spiritually – changes for the better.
Attitude is a habitual way of thinking and feeling. It is a viewpoint, a frame of mind, a thinking process and a way of looking at things. It is our standpoint, our approach to things or our reaction to situations in life. Attitudes are patterns of thought. When we think differently, things change.
When we are weak because we are sick, with hope, we seek the help of an exceptional doctor. What makes the physician exceptional? It is nothing, but competence plus attitude, which is more powerful than will, skills, academic qualifications, good looks, blessed birth, social capital and everything else welded well.
Let's say you have four glasses: one made of plastic, the second ceramic, the third steel and the fourth silver. When you fill apple juice in each one of them, would it taste different because of the containers? The answer is a resounding no. Over and above, the container does not decide the taste. Instead, the most important thing is what is inside the containers that counts.
For those who own cars, why do you go for servicing periodically? During the servicing, they change the oil and filter. Such preventive maintenance is what increases efficiency and the productive life of the car. With this, chances of breakdown become lean or thin. This positions the car for peak performance.
In the same way, human beings need to service their minds periodically to entice optimal performance. W. Clement Stone would always say, “That is good, what a great opportunity”, even when something went wrong. In the process, he would always consciously make concerted efforts to look for something good, and eventually find it.
Somehow, his objective was always to convert a bad situation into a good one.
At all times. Negativity and pessimism are worse than the diseases that assail the body. A pessimist is someone who goes to the land of milk and honey, and the only things s/he can see are calories and cholesterol. This person is prone to problems. There are people who have a problem for every solution.
A pessimist says, 'It may be possible, but it is too difficult.’ Whereas an optimist says, ‘It may be difficult, but it is possible.’ The only thing we have a choice while we sojourn and lodge on this hotel called Earth – the place of blissful birth and pensive death – is the attitude we wear.
Bruce Lee, the great martial artist, had one leg shorter than the other by one inch, but he did not complain. He was also near-sighted and had difficulty seeing an opponent without contacts or glasses. Despite these shortcomings, he practised 5,000 punches every day.
No wonder, he became a martial arts legend. He made a choice to persist. He realised that he had a problem, but he chose to turn it into a purpose. He later said, “I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.”