Opus 2025-542: An Example of Attitude

It always amazes me how much difference the attitude chosen makes in facing life’s situations.

Let’s take something that has not happened yet, at least not this year, about an issue that I really couldn’t care a lot about.  Let’s say that as you gather together for Thanksgiving dinner, the family member who was assigned to bring the cranberry sauce arrived without his contribution.  As I said, this is not an issue for me since I never eat any of it.  It is, however, any issue for some people.

There are different ways that you can respond to this.  My way would be to try to establish it in family folklore.  This could be the year when Skesicks forgot the cranberry sauce.  The tale would grow better every year.  Details might vary, but the lack of that Red stuff would be central to all of it.  Dinner would proceed and a good time would be had by all.  Whether you never had him bring the important condiment again, or whether you made it his perpetual burden would be up to you as a family.

Some families have that one person who is personally offended by the lack of cranberry sauce.  Their life is ruined.  Thanksgiving will never be the same.  It isn’t Thanksgiving if you don’t have cranberry sauce.  They make sure that everybody knows how unhappy they are.  They belittle the person who forgot the sauce, not in a humorous, good natured way, but in that way which is designed to show how inferior they are.  We don’t have one of those in our family, but I’ve heard about them.  I hope none of our blood ever morphs into such a creature.

So attitude can make a big difference.  In both families, the cranberry sauce was not on the table.  One family made it an item of family bonding and legend creating.  The other made it a divisive and destructive issue.

I guess the key is that we have the choice of what our attitude is going to be.  We have the choice of whether this holiday season is an opportunity to build memories or a time of destroying bonds.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

And don’t forget that now we can say, “Merry Christmas.”

homo unius libri