Choices
Chris McCullough (hitower@rosenet.net)
Tue Feb 03 03:07:17 1998
>This was sent to me and I thought it was so neat....past it on....
>
>WE HAVE TWO CHOICES
> Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a
> good mood and always had something positive to say. When
>someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply,
>"If I were any better, I would be twins!"
>
> He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had
> followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason
> the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a
> natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was
> there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of
> the situation.
>
> Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to
> Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive
> person all of the time. How do you do it?"
>
>Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry,
> you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good
> mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be
> in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can
> choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose
> to learn from it.
>
> Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to
>accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of
>life. I choose the positive side of life."
>
> "Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes it is," Jerry
> 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 will affect your mood. You choose to be in a
> good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you
> live life." I reflected on what Jerry said.
>
> Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own
> business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made
>a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
>
> Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are
> never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back
> door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed
>robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from
> nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked
> and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and
> rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and
> weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital
> with fragments of the bullets still in his body.
>
> I saw Jerry 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 did ask
> him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.
>
> "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have
> locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the
> floor, 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.
>
> Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling
> me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the
> emergency room 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 Jerry. "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, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I
>am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."
>
> Jerry 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.
>
>
>Hope you liked it....
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