A Bad Attitude Is Like A Flat Tire

I read this quote in Guideposts magazine one day and thought it was too good to pass up:

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you don’t change it, you’ll never go anywhere.”

Here is an example of what I mean. Over the years we have received e-mails from people who are upset with us because our cookbook, Dining on a Dime, isn’t a vegetarian cookbook or a diabetic cookbook or a wheat free cookbook, etc.

One day we had to laugh because we first received a very nasty e-mail from someone who was so angry because we didn’t take into consideration all of those people with… and she listed about 4 different allergy and food problems she had. What was so funny was that, just a few hours later, we received a phone call from a woman who couldn’t thank us enough for our cookbook. She said it was the first cookbook she had ever used where the recipes were such that she could easily adapt them to her family’s many food allergies. Then she proceeded to list all the same things that the woman in our earlier negative e-mail had listed.

It was one of the most perfect examples of two different attitudes for the same situation.

Most of you probably don’t know it, but I am left handed. I have had to live in a right handed world all my life. Only you other lefties will understand that it does pose a problem once in a while but I don’t usually even give it a second thought. I adapt. I don’t expect the whole world (the majority) to change their way because of my “difference.” I just do the best I can.

In a way, it has made me a better person because, at times, I have to get creative or learn to do things in a different and maybe even better way.

We all have some little “handicap” we have to live with. Some are bigger than others. The ones who succeed in spite of their handicaps (whether a food allergy, debt, the loss of a job, etc.) are usually the ones who have the right attitude.

Stop looking at your flat tire and ranting and raving about how it isn’t fair that there is no one to help you change it or that the street sweeper hasn’t come down that road to sweep that nail away.

Get out your owners manual, open the trunk, pull out your spare tire and get busy changing it. You don’t have a spare? Then start walking. Although, before you do anything, I would pray like crazy for God to help. I don’t know how many times I have done just that and, before I knew it, several big hunky guys were there to help. 🙂

Now don’t get me wrong… I didn’t always get big hunky guys. There have been a few tow truck drivers who I could tell had been working in 100 degree weather for several days in the same clothes and they sure loved chewing their tobacco but I was so grateful to see them. They looked as good to me as any hunk would have. Once again, it’s all in how you look at things. 🙂

So, if you feel like you are getting nowhere, maybe you have a flat tire in your mind that needs to be changed. Get out the tools you need and/or start walking. You will get there one way or another if you try.

-Jill

PS Please don’t send e mails or make comments about how dangerous it is to let strangers change your tire. Most of us aren’t that foolish and I usually call AAA but there have been times when I have been in no man’s land with no cell phone and the nearest human habitation is a farm house 25 miles away.