- View a negative situation as an opportunity to do good and create a positive outcome.
- Consider a critical remark from someone as nothing more than a challenge to improve yourself.
- Interpret a gloomy today as a prelude to a bright and sunny tomorrow.
- Decide that a setback is really a life-lesson or learning tool.
- Allow depressing feelings to surface so there is more room for you to experience positive attitudes and contemplate motivational thoughts.
- Seize the opportunity to educate someone who is preventing you from succeeding by helping them to understand how they will benefit from your ideas and plans.
- Choose to look on the bright side whenever possible. After all, life is not a dress rehearsal. Live each day of your life to the fullest!
Perhaps it will be the neighbor that you are too busy to find time to stop and chat with. Maybe it will be the Girl Scout who you avoided so that you would not have to buy a box of cookies. The list is endless. The point is that each time you choose to take “the low road” in life, you place yourself at-risk for being treated that way by others. Take time this week to consider how you could change your behavior to take “the high road” whenever possible. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Have I considered the feelings of others when I am deciding how to behave?
- Have I made choices that I might later regret?
- Am I guilty of “taking the low road”?
- What can I do to behave in a more gracious manner with others?
- How can I help myself to “take the high road” whenever possible?
You might be interested in what I chose to do in the parking log. I bit my tongue and said nothing to the woman about her comments. Although I did not have enough money to pay for both of us to leave the parking lot, I did give her what I could. As I drove off, I thought to myself, “This is just another example of how thankful I should be for the circumstances of my own life.”
