It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day...

In recent years I have really tried to live in the now instead of in the past or the future. I am a planner and I try to have things figured out before I get there...but I found myself always looking forward and not enjoying what I was doing right now as much as I could have. 

I said that to make you understand why putting the title on this post as, "It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day..." was difficult for me! I know that tomorrow is going to be a good day, I am going on my first event as a Singles Pastor. We're going to Magic Springs where we will ride roller coasters and go down water slides all day. Then at night we are going to see Relient K in concert at the park! It will be a good day so my title is not a lie but what about today?

I am of the opinion that almost any day can be a good day and it takes something really out of the ordinary to "make" a day a bad day. Lots of things can happen on any given day. People can be rude, you can get cut off in traffic, people can prove once again that they are not capable of doing their job, it can be too hot, rain too much...the list can go on and on...but I say that these things don't control whether your day is good or bad. I say that you can choose to have a good day despite all the little things that come up to annoy your or bring you down. 

Above my desk when I worked in a mail room as the production manager (not a glamorous place to work or an exciting job) I had above my desk a quote. The quote was:

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”. Charles R. Swindol

Now I was faced EVERY day with chances to have a bad attitude or let things bring me down. I was working full time while I went to school. This meant that I started work at 6am and worked until 8am, I showered and changed clothes then went to school for three hours and came back to work after a quick lunch. I would then work for 6 more hours before I went home. I did this for 9 months. Some people may say that this doesn't sound so bad. Well the crew that I had at that time in the mail room was less than stellar! Several times I went to my boss and asked him to just let everyone go and I would do all of their job until he hired more people. I was constantly having to write people up for childish behavior or for simply not doing their job. This was NOT the perfect working environment and yet I consider it to be one of my happiest years ever! I built friendships that are still strong and I learned valuable lessons not the least of which was patience.

Today I am in a very different place. I am in Arkansas for one thing, that is different enough! Then I went from a "mega-church/ministry" to a community driven church. The structure is different, the procedures are different and sometimes I sit back and say to myself, "Is that REALLY how we do this here?" The difference in administration is huge and the people are all doing things the way they were doing things before I got here. I am supposed to fit into their way of doing things and if you know me then you know that this is a bit of a challenge. All of these factors and many more make this place and this job something that could cause me to have a good day or a bad day depending on how everything plays out for each day.

So far I have been here for a month and a couple days and I have had 30 minutes where I let myself get upset and frustrated. I was over it as quick as it showed up. It was me and not the situation that turned my morning into a "bad morning" so quickly. Once I saw it, I changed it. When I was working retail we had a big push in one of the companies to "Choose your attitude." That day I didn't choose my attitude when I walked in the door but I got it straight and things are going smooth now.

Now you might be asking yourself why I am telling you all this. There are two main reasons:

1. It helps me to keep my perspective when I write things down.

2. Maybe you had a rough day and you need to be reminded to choose your attitude.

I don't want someone to pat me on the back and say, "Nice job Michael, you really have this attitude thing down!" That is NOT the goal, I am a work in progress as I know you are too. I just want to remind you that it is possible to change how you react to situations.  Smile at someone today when you don't feel like smiling. If you do that enough you will actually start to "feel" like smiling.