Resilience #58 What If?

So, what’s your atti-choose?

I promise this isn’t a lecture. We’ve all heard about the importance of choosing a positive attitude.

It’s just that in practice; we don’t seem to feel the benefits. Truthfully? I think this might be because we don’t really commit. Instead, we half-heartedly appreciate the sentiment, before getting highjacked by the immediacy of the ‘real world’. It’s as though we can’t afford the luxury of thinking about attitude, it’s reserved for the lucky few that have it easy. Life’s tough. We haven’t got the time. There are far more pressing priorities.

Choosing your attitude is not a pretence, though. It’s not about putting on a brave face. To me, it’s the mental belligerence to retain some semblance of control over your day. Regardless of the ups-and-downs (and both can be sufficiently challenging) it doesn’t have to bring you down. In fact, when the chaos is seemingly swirling all around, a little wry stoicism works wonders. You can be your very own eye-of-the storm. 

Choose how to approach your day, your colleagues, your conversations, your conundrums, your challenges. Preferably choose to engage with humility, charity and optimism. There’s no guarantee that the universe will reciprocate, of course. But YOU know. If you’ve genuinely tried to give things a good go, then everything that follows?

Well; you can let it go.

When you know you’ve done your upmost, you can sleep easy, regardless. I’m serious. Maintaining your personal integrity in challenging circumstances is character building. Your inner world combats the outer world. There’s something incredibly empowering in the realisation that you can craft the mental fortitude to prevail. Your dignity always comes from within, of which you are 100% in control.

What’s really surprising is the effect your presiding attitude has upon external events that are seemingly out of your control. The universe will often (albeit imperceptibly) start to align more favourably. It’s as if circumstances register your response and act accordingly.

You could say you’re setting an example to the wider world. Micro actions and interactions subsequently start to shift things in your favour.

All of this could all be in my mind, of course, but I think that’s the gateway to our day. Get the mindset right, adopt the correct filter, and the reality of what follows feels very different.

Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ puts it better. This was my dad’s favourite poem, and one we shared during his eulogy.

Will