You Decide

YOU DECIDE

November, 2014

The name on her Deli Counter Employee badge said Linda.  I judged her to be right around my age  . . . just pushing into her 70’s.  There was a light in her eye as if she had just won the lottery.  “Having a good day?” she almost sang as I pushed my cart down a slender aisle near the Deli.  “I am,” I replied, “and it’s clear that you are too!” 

“Oh, well. It’s easy,” she beamed,  “You decide. You decide to be happy.  I mean, everybody’s got their junk, even the folks who seem to have it all. But you can decide to be happy, ya know.  That’s what I do.  And, her whole body virtually glowed with the truth of her simple idea. 

I’d been rereading Victor E. Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning again and Linda’s point has reinforced his proud comment:  “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It’s important to remember that we decide how we look at life.  We attribute meaning to the world.  It’s easy to forget this as we encounter life and notice all the things that make us unhappy.  Like a magnet the mind goes to the negative.  Linda reminds us to turn this bad habit around.  Decide. 

Notice the gifts.  Notice all that you are receiving.  Notice the ease most of us have.  And, even for those with life challenges, notice how much help there is. 

There’s a Buddhist saying:  “Every day is a good day.” 

You decide.