[BarryRX]

Originally Posted by Rebel Pirate

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”…Charles Swindoll

I stumbled upon this Swindoll quote probably thirty years ago and it instantly became memorable for me. If it were shorter this would be on the list of top ten quotes to be memorized by grade-school students; but sometimes the complexity of the thought requires too many more words to make it memorizable. Although it can apply to many different contexts, one of the primary ones is where you find yourself physically. I’ve seen many examples of the truth of Swindoll’s observation during my career.

In the military I was stationed several places that I thought were paradise; and yet, inevitably I met a few people who didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to be there, and ended up being miserable there. Their attitudes shaped their experience. When I was part of a contingent deployed to a location that was euphemistically referred to as “arduous duty” we met as a team and decided that we could be miserable or be positive…and we decided we were always going to be positive no matter where we went no matter what happened…and it turned out to be a great experience!

Fast forward to today. Although Mrs. Pirate and I are still 1-2 years away from becoming full time TV residents, I’m already proud to be a Villager. In addition to being the largest retirement community TV is probably the best retirement community in the country, and we are so glad we found this place. You found it too - and I'll bet you decided to live here because you like the place. No matter our circumstances, we can all choose to be miserable or positive. Are you proud to be a Villager?

I remember a pych class experiment. We would walk into the local food store with an unfriendly look on our faces. It seemed that when we did this, everyone we interacted with was curt and unfriendly. If we would walk into the same store with a big smile on our faces, everyone we met seemed to be in a great mood. I don't know if it has any scientific validity, but the lesson stuck with me. Not only can our attitude influence the way we perceive things, it can also influence other people around us.