I go for a walk most mornings.
Periodically, I run into and often have a chat with a guy named Bill.
Bill is about 85 years old.
Sadly some people look through a window to see a sunset but all they see is the dirty window pane. This is why perception is so important.
Well, Bill is different.
He’s into positive affirmations, is enthusiastic and always seems passionate about life.
In conversation one day I asked him about his life experiences. I found out:
He lost good friends in the war.
His wife left him... And so on.But after talking to that senior citizen I learned a valuable lesson. He’s a living testimony of the ideal, "It’s not what happens to us that determines how our life works out, it’s how we take it."
So we can become victims or victors in life - We can get bitter or better. It comes down to response, the ball's in your court and it's always your next move.
Consider this:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way.
These words were coined by Victor Frankl, a survivor of the holocaust.
He was a survivor of four Nazi death camps including Auschwitz from 1942-45, and during those times his parents and other family members were slaughtered.
Victor went on to write “Mans search for meaning.” One of the great books of our time.The interesting thing about life is that we can’t always control what happens to us (the winds that blow).
What can you control? Your responses, your actions... You have response-abilty: The ability to respond to anything any way you like (no, you don't have to give sign language when someone cuts you off in traffic! :) ). You can set your direction regardless and finish well.
This is why personal development is so important.
One ship sails East, another West, by the self same winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sail and not the gale, that determines the way they go. Like the winds of the sea are the ways of time, as we voyage along through life. ‘Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal; And not the calm or the strife.