HAPPY OR SAD??

A friend asked me this question the other day: "I can’t understand it. No one can be a positive person all of the time, but everytime you come in here you’re whistling a tune or singing or joking about something or other. How do you do it? Don’t you ever have bad days?"

I replied to her, "each morning I wake up I say to myself, ‘self, 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."

"But, there are things that happen all the time that can turn a good mood into a bad mood," she replied. "For example, you’re running several hours behind on your schedule today, I’m sure it’s not your fault, don’t that put you in a bad mood?"

"Each time something bad or difficult happens I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it," I replied. "Everytime someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining and join in their depression and self-pity, or I can point out the positive side and try to cheer them up. I choose the positive side."

"It’s not that easy!" My friend protested. "If it was that easy, there wouldn’t be so many pickle-faced people every where you go."

"Yes it is," I replied. "Life is all about choices. When you slice away all the excess, every situation, no matter how trivial, is a choice. You choose how you react to any given situation. You choose how people will affect your mood. You make the choice to be in a bad mood or a good mood. In the final analysis, it’s your choice how you live life."

"Were you always this way," she asked me.

"No," I replied. "I think I picked it up close to the end of my tour in Vietnam. At that time there was seldom anything to feel good about and most of us were in a depressed mood most of the time. One day, after reading a passage from the book of Buddha, I simply decided to – create my own moods in life."

I remember one time when I was shot in the back and medically evacuated (again), to the hospital back in Base Camp. When they wheeled me into the operating room and I saw the somber expressions on the faces of the doctor and nurses, I was really scared. In their eyes I saw, "He’s a dead man." Right then I knew I had to do something.

Well, there was a big hatchet-faced ox of a nurse who started yelling at me, repeated asking if I was allergic to anything.

"Yes," I finally groaned back.

The doctor and nurses cautiously stopped working on me and waited patiently for a reply.

I took a deep breath and yelled, "bullets!"

Over their laughter, I told them, "I’m choosing to live, please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Well, I lived and I have tried to live up to my decision to be in a good mood no matter what the circumstances. However, like every other person I am only human, and sometimes I find myself forgetting or slacking-off on my promise.

At times it is difficult, but that is also what makes it more fun. While others are wallowing in self pity, presenting surly faces, and babbling dour platitudes – like the proverbial honey bee – I buzz around in a cheerful, happy, zippety-do-da-mood, with a positive attitude that life could not be better.

After all, it really is my choice, is it not? Have a nice day and... please put on a happy face.

Remember, never frown even when you are sad, because you never know when someone is falling in love with your smile.