Attitudes

I found this, by Charles Swindoll on a quotes website:
"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than future, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable think is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes."

Such wise words! The message yesterday at church was basically about this. The pastor discussed the positive and negative of magnets and related that to people. A negative attitude in a person can bring anyone near that person down to a level they don't want to be. "Negative energy attracts negative energy." Do you have that one (or maybe more) family member, friend, coworker that always seems to have the worst attitude about everything? They are usually also constantly talking negatively about others. This seems to be their way of trying to make themselves look/feel better or something. With family, sometimes it's hard to separate yourself from those situations without causing World War III or something. However, we can change the subject, try to gracefully leave the room, etc. This attitude is like a poison and can easily spread itself when allowed. I have tried to be more aware of when I allow this to sneak in on me and try to remind myself that there is ALWAYS someone somewhere that has it worse and that I have no right to behave that way.