There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is the attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. Nowhere is this principle better illustrated than in the story of the young bride from the East who, during wartime, followed her husband to a U.S. Army camp on the edge of the desert in California.
Living conditions were primitive at best, and her husband had advised her against her move, but she wanted to be with him. The only housing they could find was a run-down shack near an Indian village. The heat was unbearable in the daytime. The wind blew constantly, spreading dust and sand all over everything. The days were long and boring. Her only neighbors were Indians, none of whom spoke English. When her husband was ordered farther into the desert for two weeks, loneliness and the wretched living conditions got the best of her. She wrote to her mother that she was coming home. She couldn't take it anymore.
In a short, while she received a reply which included these lines,'' Two men looked through prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars.'' She read the lines over and over again and began to feel ashamed of herself. She didn;t really want to leave her husband. All right, she thought, she'd look for the stars. In the following days, she set out to make friends with the Indians, asking them to teach her weaving and pottery. At first, they were distant, but soon as they sensed her genuine interest, they returned her friendship. She became friendly with the culture and history- in fact, everything about them. As she began to study the desert, it too changed from a desolate, forbidding place to a marvelous thing of beauty.
She had her mother send her books. She studied the forms of cacti, the yuccas, and the Joshua trees. She collected seashells that had been left there when the sands had been ocean floor. Later, she became such an expert on the area that she wrote a book about it.
What had changed? Not the desert; not the Indians. Simply by changing her attitude, she transformed a miserable experience into a highly rewarding one. YOU CAN DO THE SAME TODAY!!
Do you feel the world is treating you well? If your attitude toward the world is excellent, you will receive excellent results. If you feel so-so about the world, your response from the world will be average. Feel badly about your world and you will seem to have only negative feedback from life.- John Maxwell
