“When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.” (Sam Lefkowitz)
🔊 Click here to listen to a 2-minute audio version of this story.
A couple of years ago, my family returned from a long Thanksgiving trip in which we rented a car, we found our actual car right where we had left it in the rental company’s parking lot … but it had 2 Flat Tires!
I started airing up both tires with the rental company’s air compressor but became frustrated. This thing had to be the slowest air pump ever sold. It took a full 20 minutes to air up the two tires!
Once both tires were good enough to drive, I was on my way to the tire store to fix my problem. Of course, there was heavy traffic and it seemed that I got stopped at every red light.
Once I arrived at the tire store, it took much longer to fix than they initially estimated and to top it all off, there was no Wi-Fi in the lobby for Pete’s sake.
Could this day get any worse?
Well, the tire company ended up fixing both tires for free.
Amazingly, instead of taking advantage of me and trying to sell me new tires, they said that it would be months before I’d need new tires so I should use that time to watch for coupons to use when it was actually time to get new tires.
We often forget that it’s not happy people who are thankful, but thankful people who are happy.
I had gotten frustrated with a slow air compressor but wasn’t grateful that the rental car company even had an air compressor to loan me so I wouldn’t have to pay for a tow truck.
I was frustrated when I hit red lights but wasn’t grateful for any of the green lights.
I was frustrated by the long wait at the tire store but wasn’t grateful for the fact that they fixed the tires for free and didn’t try to up-sell me even though I wasn’t their customer.
These were just minor inconveniences. They were not real problems.
As Captain Jack Sparrow said in Pirates of the Caribbean, “The problem is not the problem. The problem is our attitude toward the problem.”
Since that day with two flat tires, I am often reminded that I can’t always control my circumstances but I can always control how I react to those circumstances.
I get to choose my response to things. I don’t have to allow any situation to affect my mood.
Just remember that “A bad attitude can be like a flat tire. We won’t get very far until we change it.”