'Yeah,
right, it's not that easy,' I protested.
'Yes,
it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk,
every situation
is
a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect
your mood.
You
choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line:
It's
your choice how you live your life.'
I
reflected on what he said. Soon thereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start
my own business.
We
lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life
instead of
reacting
to it.
Several
years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60
feet
from
a communications tower.
After
18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the
hospital with
rods
placed in his back.
I
saw him about six months after the accident.
When
I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be
twins..
Wanna
see my scars?'
I
declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his
mind
as
the accident took place.
'The
first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born
daughter,'
he
replied. 'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I
could choose
to
live or . . . I could choose to die. I chose to live.'
'Weren't
you scared? Did you lose consciousness?' I asked,
He
continued, 'The paramedics were great!
They
kept telling me I was going to be fine.
But
when they wheeled me into the ER and
I
saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses,
I
got really scared.
In
their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'.
I
knew I needed to take action.'
'What
did you do?' I asked.
'Well,
there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,' said John.
'She
asked
if I was allergic to anything 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses
stopped
working
as they waited for my reply.
I
took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity''
Over
their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live.
Operate
on me as if I am alive, not dead.'
He
lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing
attitude...
I
learned from him that every day we have the choice to live
fully.
Attitude,
after all, is everything!
"Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each
day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34.
After
all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
You
have two choices now:
A.
Forward it to the people you care about,
those
who touch your heart.
or
B. Simply
delete.
***(You
know the choice I made.)
'The angels
come to visit us, and we only know