THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Patrick Mathieu, Author, Life Coach, Speaker

When something happens, the outcome is either positive or negative, right? Well, I maintain that outcomes depend entirely on your choice!

We create our realities by virtue of the meanings we assign to the happenings in our lives.  The cliché is that some people see the glass as half full and some see the same glass as half empty.  Even though that metaphor has been used over and over again, it still points to the fact that a half-glass of something has no inherent meaning until someone looks at it and decides whether it will have a positive or a negative impact on their frame of mind. We always have a choice.

I’m not sure how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way many people seem to have decided that the way to convey how serious, important and mature they are is to always look concerned, overworked and to constantly be on the lookout for the negative side of things.  After all, the only people who are carefree, joyful and perpetually optimistic are children, hippies and fools, right?  Well I don’t agree. Life is going to do whatever life is going to do.  We have the choice to decide what meaning we assign to whatever happens.

You wake up on a Sunday morning in the summer to see a heavy, warm rain steadily pouring down.  That’s just what’s happening.  The meaning you give it will differ greatly depending on whether you had a morning tee-off scheduled or whether you had just spent Saturday planting your garden or re-seeding your lawn.  Same rain - different meaning.  The choice is yours.

I’m sure there are some of you who are willing to accept my premise for some things, but not for all.  You might be saying: “But Patrick, you don’t know my boss (or spouse)!  (S)he really has it in for me and my work environment (or relationship) is an absolute hell on earth.  There is no way I can simply “choose to look at it differently”.  My only choice in the matter is to quit (or leave them) and that’s no choice at all.”

If you really think that your choice of attitude is irrelevant in certain situations, I have two words for you: Viktor Frankl.  If you know his story, you know exactly what I mean.  If you don’t recognize his name, you need to read his book Man’s Search for Meaning.

So let’s forget the theoretical world and make this personal.  And let’s take it to the extreme.  Imagine that you find yourself sitting on an examination table wearing a drafty hospital gown. Your doctor takes one look at your x-ray, lowers his head and looks at his feet as he turns to talk to you.  What happens next is fuzzy, but you can recall the words “cancer”, “terminal” and the phrase “six months”.  That’s just what happens.  What it means is up to you.

You can choose to spend six months dying or you can choose to spend six months really living.  The choice is yours.

And that, my friends, is the secret to life!  You won’t get out alive, but you have full control over the experience you have while you are here.  No, you can’t always control the circumstances, but you are in full control over the meanings.  And the meaning is what makes the difference between “surviving” and truly living!

So which will you choose?

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Patrick Mathieu has been a professional motivational speaker for over five years, and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including Oprah & Friends.  Patrick began studying and practicing the art of public speaking in grade seven. He was the valedictorian of his high school’s graduating class. He was the President of his high school’s award-winning debating society and was a member of the prestigious McGill University Debating Union. He also did amateur stand-up comedy in Montréal.

He graduated from McGill University and spent seven years in information security sales. One day he realized

What

he had a personal message to deliver that had the potential to impact people’s lives far more than any IT product ever could.

Patrick is the author of What’s Your Expiry Date and creator of the Mortality Manifesto, both of which you can find out more at  http://www.powerofmortality.com