on the flight to new york i was flipping thru those lame Sky Mall catalogs. normally the products they sell are pretty lame but i found a few pages dedicated to those Inspirational Posters that you see around. there was this one poster in particular that caught my eye:

The Power of Attitude

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens; not by what life brings us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst....a spark that creates extraordinary results.

daaamn, that was deep; and its so true.

if you remember my Energy & Emotions deep thought, i talked about how positive and negative emotions are just like energy -- than can not be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form or another. if you think about it, your attitude is what determines whether outside forces are converted to positive or negative emotions.

i'm sure you can think of a few people that are pessimists. you can mention just one word to them and they could go on for hours just bitching about it.

i remember in highschool i was talking to this one girl...

Girl #2: hey, i like your shirt!!
Girl #1: thanks!!
Girl #1: (bitch...)

instead of being happy for the compliment, the girl i was talking to started bitching.

Girl #1: she's jealous of me.
Girl #1:she's supposed to say 'you look great in that shirt.'
Girl #1:the way she said it, it implies that the shirt looks good but i don't.

you see what i mean? clearly, Girl #2 was just giving a compliment but Girl #1 managed to twist the whole situation and turn it into negative feelings. crazy, eh? that's the way pessimistic people work -- everything that happens becomes personal in a negative way.

okay, so that's the pessimistic side; that's one end of the spectrum of attitude. but lets not forget that there are two sides of every spectrum. if there's someone that can always find something to bitch about, then at the opposite end of the spectrum there has to be the person that can always find the light in any situation. this person is the optimist. (duh)

you see, the optimist understands that life will have its ups and downs. the optimist understands failure and learning from mistakes. the optimist understands imperfection.

so why is it that we find so many pessimists in our lives and not enough optimists? why is it that we can easily scroll down our buddylists and find at least one person saying something negative in their profile or away message?

all it takes is changing the way we think. and when we do that, life becomes a whole lot more pleasant.

having said that, i'd like to leave you with one last quote (which is a personl favorite of mine):

Stress is not caused by others; its caused by our reaction to others.