On her Facebook page, renowned poet Maya Angelou posted this quote: "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
I love this variation of the Serenity Prayer, most commonly attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr : God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Courage and attitude. Two important resources that often are overlooked when facing difficult times. Courage is simply the ability to do what needs to be done, despite potential negative outcomes. Most of us let our imaginings about potential negative outcomes make us blind to the potential positive results.
We let imagination rob us of courage. We could just as well allow imagination to focus on the positive, and be the fuel to move us forward. It's a choice, but we have to be conscious to choose the positive, because the unconscious will almost always choose the fearful negative.
If you claimed your own courage today, what would you do? How would you make a difference?
A common psychological defense when we are fearful is to become upset, angry, sarcastic, insulting, verbally abusive, or cynical. These negative emotional behaviors are called having a bad attitude, and they visit us when we are caught up in not liking something that we feel powerless about.
I don't know about you, but I don't need to answer the door when these visitors come calling.
Having a bad attitude is toxic to solution-finding, to generating alternative thinking, and to change, among other things. We can choose to react without attitude. We can even simply acknowledge that we don't like something or are afraid of something, without piling a lot of defensiveness on top of that.
What is in your world today that you don't like? Can you change it? Can you change your attitude about it? What positive outcome might happen if you did?
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