The Outlook of Your Life
Jerry is the kind of guy you love to meet in the supermarket. He always has a
kind word, a funny joke, or, at the very least, a smile. It doesn't take much to
bring on that smile. Jerry's happy if all of the wheels on his grocery cart are
going in the same direction. If you ask him how he's doing, he's likely to
reply, "If I were doing any better, I'd be twins!"
Not many restaurant managers have waiters follow them from one franchise to the
next, but Jerry does. They love his attitude. A natural motivator, Jerry can
tell if you're having a tough day. "Look on the bright side," he'll say. "If the
sun's in your eyes, you sneeze more. It's good for you."
One day a friend said, "I don't get it, Jerry. You can't be positive all the
time. How do you do it?"
Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, 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. Each time something bad happens. I can
choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from
it. Every time someone comes to me complain I can choose to accept their
complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive
side."
"Yeah, right," the friend protested. "It's not that easy."
"Oh yes, it is," said Jerry. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all
the rest, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.
You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or
a bad mood. It's your choice how you live life."
One day ]erry left the back door of his restaurant open, not knowing how his
theory would be put to the ultimate test.
Three thieves walked through the door that day and held Jerry up at gunpoint.
While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped from
the combination lock. The robbers panicked. And shot him.
]erry was rushed to the local trauma center. After eighteen hours of surgery and
weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with fragments of the
bullets still in his body. Later, when his friend asked him how he was doing, ,]erry
replied, "If I were am better. I'd be twins ...wanna see my scars?" The friend
declined, but asked. "Tell me, what went through your mind during the robbery?"
"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the
back door." Replied Jerry. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had
two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared?" Asked the friend.
Yes, Jerry was scared. "But the paramedics were great," he told his friend.
"They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the
emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses,
I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed
to take action."
"What did you do?"
"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me. She asked if I was
allergic to anything. I said 'Yes!"'
The doctors and nurses stopped working and looked at him with concerned wrinkles
on their foreheads.
Jerry took a deep breath and said loudly, "I'm allergic to bullets!"
Over their laughter Jerry told them, "Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."
And they did.
Today Jerry is still in the restaurant business. Waiters and waitresses still
follow him around, basking in his encouragement, learning from his positive
words of advice. Jerry will tell you without blinking that he's alive today
because of the skills of some doctors, nurses, and paramedics. But by the time
you finish talking with him, you'll know that he's also alive because of his
amazing attitude.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed in a diving accident, would admire ]erry's
spirit. I've had the privilege of talking with Joni on several occasions, and
once she told me: "With profound potential for good, suffering can also be a
destroyer. Suffering can pull families together, uniting them through hardship,
or it can rip them apart in selfishness and bitterness.... It all depends. On
us. On how we respond."
I'm like Jerry-allergic to bullets (it's called ballistophobia). And like Jerry,
I cannot choose when or where they will hit. I would love to. But I can't. The
one thing I can control is my reaction. My response. My attitude.
How about you? How are you responding to the bullets that come your way? To the
cacti in your life?
Proverbs 17:22 says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit
dries up the bones" (NIV).
Which will you choose today: A happy heart? Or bitter to the bone?
Callaway, Phil. Laughing Matters. Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2005, p.
48-51 .