Struggles

When he was a small boy, he had loved butterflies. Oh, not to net and

mount them, but to wonder at their designs and habits.

Now a grown man with his first son to be born in a few weeks, he found

himself once again fascinated with a cocoon. He had found it at the side

of the park path. Somehow the twig had been knocked from the tree and

the cocoon had survived undamaged and still woven to the branch.

As he had seen his mother do, he gently protected it by wrapping it in

his handkerchief and carried it home. The cocoon found a temporary home

in a wide-top mason jar with holes in the lid. The jar was placed on the

mantle for easy viewing and protection from their curious cat who would

delight in volleying the sticky silk between her paws.

The man watched. His wife’s interest lasted only a moment, but he studied

the silky envelope. Almost imperceptibly at first, the cocoon moved. He

watched more closely and soon the cocoon was trembling with activity.

Nothing else happened. The cocoon remained tightly glued to the twig and

there was no sign of wings.

Finally the shaking became so intense, the man thought the butterfly would

die from the struggle. He removed the lid on the jar, took a sharp pen

knife from his desk drawer, and carefully made a tiny slit in the side

of the cocoon. Almost immediately, one wing appeared and then outstretched

the other. The butterfly was free!

It seemed to enjoy its freedom and walked along the edge of the mason jar

and along the edge of the mantle. But it didn’t fly. At first the man

thought the wings needed time to dry, but time passed and still the

butterfly did not take off.

The man was worried and called up his neighbor who taught high school

science. He told the neighbor how he had found the cocoon, placed it in

the mason jar, and the terrible trembling as the butterfly struggled to

get out. When he described how he had carefully made a small slit in the

cocoon, the teacher stopped him. “Oh, that is the reason. You see, the

struggle is what gives the butterfly the strength to fly.”

And so it is with us. Sometimes it’s the struggles in life that strengthen

us the most.

Author Unknown

Choose How you start your day tomorrow

Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would replay “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator.   If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style made really made me curious so one day I went up to Michael and asked him. “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Michael replied, :”Each morning I wake up and say to myself – You have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad 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 complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining, or I can point out the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” Michael said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. Your bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what Michael said. Soon thereafter I left the tower industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with steel rods in his back.

I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he relied “If I were any better, I’d be twins! Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what went through his mind as the accident took place.   “The first thing was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter” Michael replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered I had two choices.   I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared?   Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

Michael continued, “….the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER 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?” I asked.

”Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Michael. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.

“Yes,” I replied.   The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. “Gravity.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude is, after all, everything. Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

“Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone.”  Sen. John McCain

“Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision”  Colin Powell

A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.”   ― Booker T. Washington

“A man does what he can until his destiny reveals itself.”  “The Last Samurai”

“The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.”
Duguet

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

Robert Louis Stevenson