152 11111 00 W00 W00 W00 W00 Ways tays tays tays tays to Motivo Motivo Motivo Motivo Motivate Yate Yate Yate Yate Yourourourourourselfselfselfselfself
British author G.K. Chesterton used to say that pes-
simists (like the person with that sticker on his car)
don’t stay anti-life very long when you put a revolver to
their heads. All of a sudden, they can think of a million
reasons to live. Those million reasons are always there,
down inside of us, waiting to be called up. Our pessi-
mism is usually a false front put on to get sympathy.
Another popular bumper sticker has been “Shit Hap-
pens.” I happen to consider that bumper sticker to be
ironically optimistic. It’s one of the qualities of optimists
that they are not surprised, overwhelmed, or offended
by trouble. They know that trouble comes, and they
know they can handle it.
Some people have been upset by the popularity of
this slogan, and I’ve seen them try to counter with the
sticker, “Love Happens.” Actually, they have it wrong.
Shitdoes happen. But love does not. Love doesn’t hap-
pen all by itself. Love is created.
In his stirring book Son Rise, Barry Neil Kaufman
tells an astonishing true story of how he and his wife
healed their once-autistic son and helped nurture him
to a happy, extroverted life. Kaufman and his wife made
a conscious choice to see their son’s disability as a great
blessing to them. It was just a choice, like choosing to
face the sun instead of facing your shadows. But as
Kaufman says, “The way we choose to see the world cre-
ates the world we see.”
71. Travel deep inside
Most of us wait to find out who we are from impres-
sions and opinions we get from other people. We base
our own so-called self-image on other people’s views of
us.