I gotta tell you this story because it helped put my head on straight . . . and it will do you the same!

 My friend Cuchie in Allenwood Medium 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, it would be illegal!”

If a brother was having a bad day, Cuchie was there telling him how to “look on the up side, Bro!”

One day I went up and asked him, “What’s the deal with you? No way you can be up all of the time.”

He comes back, “Each morning I get up and say to myself, 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,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the crap, every situation lets you make a choice. You choose how you react . You choose how people affect how you feel.

 You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

 Soon after this, I was let out. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

 Several years later, I heard that after his release he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet off a building at a construction site. After 18 hours of surgery and months of intensive care , he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about a year after the accident.

 I asked him how he was, he said, “If I were any better, it would be illegal…Wanna see my scars?” “No thanks” was fast out of my mouth, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind layin’ on the concrete.

 ”The first thing was what was gonna happen to my kids,” he replied. “Then I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

 ”You must’ve freaked? Did you pass out?” I asked? He continued, “..the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I did freak. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. There was a big burly nurse shouting questions  at me.  She asked if I was allergic or had a bad reaction to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’ ”

 They laughed like hell, and I told them, “I wanna live, so make this a successful operation!”

Cuchie lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

I learned a few lessons from Cuchie:

             Attitude is everything!! Every day you have the choice to live it fully, regardless of the situation.

             Don’t worry about tomorrow, let tomorrow worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

             After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday, and Yo, you’re still standin’, right?

Oh, just in case you need a bit more attitude adjustment, just click,  Finish Strong, to put things in perspective!