A New Year; A New Attitude!

Hello friends;
Well, it's a new year and all things are possible!
Just think: the turning of a new page means that you have the chance to start fresh. Begin anew. Old things are passing away and new things are about to begin!
 By all means I would never suggest that you leave behind the things that are important such as your loved ones, bills that need to be paid, that place where they hold your paycheck hostage and you dread leaving the house every morning just to put in your forty plus hours. Those tangibles that we must endure to survive in a world spinning out of control. The rampant commercialism, mud slinging political campaigns, (it is an election year after all); looming global economic collapse and, well, I think you get the picture.
Hmm, not exactly the most promising picture I'm painting is it?
That's where the turning to a clean page comes in: Everyone knows and suffers with the tangibles . . .  but what about those intangibles?  Like attitude? Self esteem? Tolerance of others? 
Let's take these intangibles one at a time:

Attitude:  Webster's New World Dictionary defines this as: 1 a bodily posture showing mood, action, etc.  2 a manner showing one's feelings or thoughts  3 ones disposition, opinion, etc.  4 (slang) a quarrelsome or haughty temperament or manner. 
If you ask me these are all things that we have total control over--in ourselves that is.  I have decided that the way people perceive me is due to the attitude that I project from within. No one controls that except ME. I am in total control of my attitude.  So that can only mean one thing: If I don't like what I see in the mirror I am the only one that can change it.

Self esteem:  1 self respect  2 undue pride in oneself; conceit
Yes, I have spent a lot of my life with what could be termed "Low self esteem"  I had no respect for myself, and was my own worst enemy. I was also a self-saboteur.  I felt I was unworthy of anything better and for many wasted years I did nothing to change that until I saw the light with a simple remark that my best friend told me about twenty five years ago, give or take a couple of years, "People will treat you the way you teach them to treat you."  WOW! That one took me by complete surprise when I realized that it was absolutely true.  I projected a poor attitude of myself and others picked up on that.  If I didn't like me then why should they? I never saw myself as attractive, desirable or even smart back then. I've always thought of myself as plain, common and nothing special. And thinking that way about me I sent out these tsunami waves of negative energy and others picked up on them.
Once I realized what I was doing I did what I had to do.  It wasn't easy and I fell back into that "woe is me" attitude on occasion but I have finally come to realize that I am special: to myself.  I am attractive and desirable, (someday someone will realize that I am unique and special but I refuse to wait around until that day comes. I can do what ever I wish to do because, "I CAN"). I am an intelligent woman and I learn new things every day.  I stopped believing the worst about myself and I finally convinced myself that I wasn't really a waste of fresh oxygen and chromosomes.  I would catch myself putting me down with degrading remarks such as; "I am so stupid.  Why did I do something so dumb?" Or, "Look how fat I am." And the coup de gras "I wish I looked like (fill in the blank with the current supermodel here)."  These are all things that told me I was not good enough and I was lacking.

But, you know what? Like that old song by Patti Labelle "I've Got A New Attitude"

I stopped telling myself what was wrong about me and started finding things that were right about me.  Each day I told myself something good about myself and that no matter what I was going to find something good to make even my darkest day just a little bit brighter.

If not, well, Tomorrow will be a brighter day!

Tolerance: The last item on my intangibles list.  1 being tolerant of others' views, beliefs, practices, etc.  2 the amount of variation allowed from a standard  3 med. The (developed) ability to resist the effects of a drug, etc. (this one has no bearing on my point but thought I should add it anyway.)

Well, this one is pretty self explanatory I would think.  You should have a little more tolerance for yourself when you make a mistake.  Don't beat yourself up over a bad decision, a broken relationship that should never have been a relationship in the first place, or backing into that pole the other day.  Things happen, deal with it and move on.  Easier said than done, I know, I know.  I am my own worst critic and I should practice what I preach and for the most part I do.
It's not the mistakes we make that make us, it's how we deal with those mistakes and what we learn from them.

It's all in the attitude, self esteem and tolerance.

Tomorrow will always be a brighter day . . . even when it rains it could be always be worse.  You could be living in a country that shuns democracy and advocates the subjugation of women.
Think about it.

Start your New Year with a Great New Attitude!
Later
Kate