THE RIGHT ATTITUDE

The cliche's on attitude abound. For me, they are downright annoying; attitude determines your altitude, attitude = 100  yada yada yada

Many times I think those lines are just ways the Zig Ziglars and those other motivational speakers get us to buy their  books and pay to listen to their seminars.

However, I learnt differently these past weeks. As a law student who sometimes wonders why she is studying law at all, I have days when school is the last place I want to be. I'd really rather just sleep. A few weeks ago I cast my mind back to a statement an old teacher made to me, "anything worth doing is worth doing well".


I decided, hey, I've come this far already, might as well "put my back into it". My strategy; a change of attitude.  I decided to wake up on every school morning with the attitude of someone going to pick up a check for a million bucks.


What a dramatic change!


I not only had more energy, I became more excited than ever before about school. The amazing thing also was that, not only did I feel better, I apparently looked better. The first time I tried this new attitude thingy, I remember my brother dropping me off at the busstop with me brushing my hair in the car and doing a rush job of applying some makeup. So, under normal circumstances, it wasn't a day when I felt I was looking my best. Surprisingly though, all my friends said I looked really good, hot even!
The very wise Dalai Lama said

"It is very importanat to generate a good attitude as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come"

That gave me a whole new perspective on having the right attitude. I believe the same can be applied to any endeavor whtsoever one sets upon. Work for instance, even if you absolutely hate the job, as long as you are stuck there and haven't gotten your dream job, get a new attitude. Find a new reason to be excited about going to work each day, asides the fact that you get paid. As Maya Angelou said

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude"

Whenever not so great things happen to me, I always have this attitude of "it happened for a reason, here's a chance to learn for tomorrow" and stuff like that. It dawned on me that possibly that's one of the reasons I'm never depressed or hardly unhappy. I always find a way to see a bright light in any dark situation. It just might be one of my biggest flaws but I choose to see it instead as me having the right attitude.

Thinking back to the first time I wrote an entrance examination for the university, I passed the exam, even passed the cut off by miles, but I had not entered some other information(not due to any fault of mine) and that disqualified me. I was extremely unhappy, inconsolable even because I felt it was unfair and I had been cheated. Then I thought to myself that who knows what would have happened if I had gained the admission, I might have been involved in an accident on my way to classes or some other bad thing might have happened. I realise now that I had simply decided to see the positive in a negative situation.

"You cannot control what happens to you, rather you can control your attitude towards whatever happens to you, and in that you will be mastering change than allowing it to master you" Brian Tracy

Turns out those motivational speakers weren't messing with us whenever they'd emphasize the importance of having the right attitude. The difference in being happy or sad, satisfied or discontent,is really in having a positive or negative attitude.