Attitude, Part 1

This is how Dictionary.com defines attitude:

Attitude: "manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind"

Take a second to consider yours. Not at this particular moment, but overall, day to day (the problem with "right now" is that it will usually be too heavily influenced by how you feel).

If you think you have a pretty good/positive attitude, try this: imagine your 8 year old spilling his drink on the living room carpet, or being late to work when someone bumps you from behind at a stop sign, or dropping a spoonful of spaghetti on your dress at lunch, or any number of irritating things that can happen to us daily.

How do you respond when something like that happens? If you are like me, you get annoyed. And you may yell at the driver, or get upset with your 8-year old, or stomp around in a mad-at-self display.

So how do you fix this? What I do is say "that's what I did this time". And just think about that. And then, maybe because you think about that, next time you can catch yourself and in each case be a bit less so. This will work, though it may take a while. If you are impatient, just think where you'll be in "a while" if you don't start trying to fix it now.

One last thing: how often do you take offense at what people say to or about you? It's the same process. And really this is just trying to be less concerned about ourselves. If we try thinking less of ourselves (or rather, thinking of ourselves less) we'll take less offense at what people say. And I believe take another step on the path toward God.