On the first day of class, my professor (who was also - at the time - the General Manager of KASU) spoke to us in our first & only classroom session. All future classes would be held within the KASU studio. He said something that I have never forgotten. He wanted to belay any assumptions anyone would develop over the course of the semester about his relationship with his students. He said that from that first day of class forward, until the last day of class, we were not to take anything person away from whatever he may say to us in class.
What's so big about that? He laid down what he wanted us to expect. He would be critical of our on-air performance, he would praise our accomplishments. And he would do it unbiased. So we were not to assume he was playing favorites amongst the students. It was a very valuable attitude adjustment for me as I studied under him. And from that day until now, I have had nothing but the highest respect for him.
But you know, so many folks do not stop to adjust their attitude like that. Instead, they muddle through life with the proverbial chip on their shoulder or have their expectations so high that they set themselves up for a big let down. There have been so many things I can recall my late father saying that have stuck with me. One of those is:
It's easier for you to change your attitude toward the world than for the world to change its attitude toward you.
If we really acted as if we believed that, it would be amazing as to how stress-free our lives would be. My dad used to listen to Earl Nightingale on cassette for several mornings at a time as he got ready for work. And many of what he passed on to me was what he gleaned from what he heard on these tapes.
He also took Dale Carnegie Courses, which eventually led me to find the book How To Win Friends And Influence People. A book that was an eye-opener for me. This also led me to find a book in my school library (back in the days such books as this were allowed in school libraries) called, The Power of Positive Thinking For Young People by Norman Vincent Peale. All were part of my attitude adjustment.
Nightingale's biggest success came from a gold record he received from the spoken word album The Strangest Secret. This was one of the tapes my dad listened to. In this talk, Nightingale stressed that we become what we think about. Now just think about that for a minute.....
When you begin to think that you are the target for some unfortunate circumstance, you are creating a monster inside of you that can grow as fast as any acute cancer inside your body. Country singer Don Williams released a song back in the 1980s that speaks to this kind of thinking:
I know all about black clouds,
There's one that follows me around
It may sound funny but somehow,
It only rains on me
It follows me almost everywhere,
And it seems it's hardly fair
People will stop and people stare,
But it only rains on me
I'll bet this won't hurt you much,
You'll find someone soon enough
I'm the one that loses in love,
It only rains on me
It's time we said goodbye and so,
I'll just take my cloud and go
Don't worry you'll forget I know,
It only rains on me
Chorus:
Broken dreams and drowned parades,
Lovers who just slip away
Guess I learn to live that way,
It only rains on me
Seems to me there was a time,
It used to rain on friends of mine
Now I look around and find,
It only rains on me
We base our expectations on a self-fulfilling prophecy we continue to perpetuate each time we tell ourself that this is how our life is. So, it just goes around & around like a dog chasing its tail. As the lyrics say, "Guess I learn to live that way", we condition ourself to expect the worst. We justify our behavior by saying that we're just trying to be realistic.
Realistic??
The first thing in being realistic is getting a good attitude adjustment. I start with saying that I live in the United States of America...not Utopia. I know that the way things should be, but the reality is that they're NOT as they should be. So I stop expecting that. This causes me to then focus on the little things in life that help life along rather than looking at life as a whole. I refuse to set myself up for a disappointment.
When I hold up standards so high that I get disappointed often, it caused others to be disappointed - if not frustrated - in the process. If I have a friend who I expect to call me frequently to just see how I'm doing & that friend doesn't do it, I get disappointed in that person & begin to think that this person really doesn't care at all for me. This angers me & begins to churn up feelings that may not accurately reflect reality. It may be that this friend is just plain absent-minded & really has so many plates spinning that nothing gets accomplished. He/she may feel bad that they don't stay in touch with their friends as often as they should. But my frustration with this person could play itself out in the form of a thought like, "You must not think much of me anymore since I've not heard anything from you." I may not say this to the friend, but that feeling has festered in my mind to the point that no matter what this person says about why they have neglected staying in touch with me, it would be filtered through my bias feelings toward that person.
Is that "reality"? Hardly.
However, if I just accept the reality that this friend is just absent-minded & really does have good intentions to stay in touch, but everything keeps getting in the way, I refrain from conjuring up feelings of neglect or rejection. So when I do see this friend, I am excited that at that moment we are able to connect & catch up on each other. I feel better about this friend, our relationship with each other, and this friend feels even more connected to me because I am not holding anything over their head.
Does this mean I turn a blind eye to the obvious? Absolutely NOT! Taking a positive approch to live does NOT mean I gloss over or ignore things in life that are NOT positive. There's a difference in turning a blind eye toward a negative situation & acknowledging the negative but choosing not to react to it.
This reality has given me such a lift in my life -- that I have control over what affects me....not the other way around. Another saying my dad used to quote was:
Think enthusiastic & you will be enthusiastic.
You can do this while you acknowledge the harsh reality of life but emphasize the positive side. And the strange thing about this is that I found when I took this approach to life, my change of attitude resulted in more people becoming at ease with me & this would provide me a better platform to talk about things that were not as positive. In other words, I became more approachable. It's one thing to let things bother you, but it's something different when you let others KNOW its bothers you. Yes, I believe there are times when I must vocalize my feelings...but do I have to do it with each instance? Or should I just pick my battles wisely?
Since I've come to live out the expectation that it is easier for me to change my attitude toward the world than the other way around, does this mean I have succumbed to a non-aggressive, wimpy mentality? Don't bet on it. I still have my same belief system. But I have allowed others to have theirs, too. I have written off any desire to try to change their belief or their lifestyle - until they feel like they need to include my opinion. In the meantime, I concentrate on finding ways to better connect with others. Finding ways to earn the right to speak truth into their lives.
I believe that if we all spent more time adjusting our attitude toward the world than expecting the world to change its attitude toward us, we may find that we're all pretty easy to live with. And that we could actually go through our lives genuinely trusting each other.
