Newsletter 11/7/07
By
Tim Patterson
There is an old story of a father with two very different sons.
The elder son had it all, yet, was always negative, looking for
the bad in situations and felt that the world owed him everything.
The younger son was happy, thankful for all he received which was much less than his elder sibling and he always had a positive view of life.
The father, wanting to help his elder son change his
outlook in life, devised a simple lesson. On Christmas morning, he brought two buckets of horse manure into the house as gifts for each son. The elder son immediately turned his nose up at his "gift" and scorned his father for having presented something like that to him.
Puzzled, the father watched the second son feverishly
digging through the bucket with his hands as if looking for
something. The father asked his younger son, "Son, what are you are looking for?" "Dad!" the boy exclaimed, "With all of this horse manure, there has to be pony in here somewhere!"
I was recently traveling on vacation in the
friend Suzy and we had a bad breakfast experience one morning.
We were staying in a beautiful resort on the
which is a most serene and peaceful destination in the
Breakfast each morning was served at the edge of the sea
in a very casual and open setting. On this particular morning,
Suzy and I sat for breakfast in our usual spot. However, there was a slight change that morning. The waiter that had normally filled each of our mornings with his infectious grin was serving a different section that day. On this particular day, Mabel was to be our waitress. From her first encounter with us, Mabel was abrasive and somewhat rude. She questioned whether we even belonged at the resort from the moment that we sat down.
After much waiting, Mabel finally brought our morning coffee and once again debated with us regarding our belonging there. Finally, our breakfast ordered, we tried to relax in anticipation of our food.
En route with food, Mabel decided to set our food aside and clean several tables in an already empty restaurant before bringing it to us.
When she did bring it to our table it was ice cold. After this final insult, we said "no thank you" and left the breakfast table empty handed. I am sure Mabel was having a bad day and her behavior really had nothing to do with us, but it still was not a pleasant experience for any of us.
Minutes later, Suzy and I regrouped in our room and I told her affectionately that "it would be OK and that we will find the pony".
With a fresh outlook and uplifted demeanor, we left for the
morning and decided to try to have brunch at an extremely
popular
restaurant sat perched on a point with breathtaking views of the Caribbean and was only accessible by land though very narrow roads with small homes on each side - and sure enough, on the way in someone's front yard, not only did we see one pony there eating grass - WE SAW TWO!
Suzy looked at me and we both laughed that just moments before I had spoken about "finding the pony".
The lesson remembered here is that our thoughts and feelings about the events in our lives are much more powerful than we realize. Suzy and I could have let a bad situation that morning ruin our day. We could have blamed this woman for treating us badly. We could have griped to many people around us. Instead, we accepted the event for what it was. We decided to not respond negatively to the situation and look for a positive outcome to what happened. What was the outcome? A fantastic dining and viewing
experience that we would have otherwise missed had the
"negative" event not presented itself.
Even when you get your own "bucket" handed to you, it always pays to have "the right attitude" when confronted with challenges in life and "to look for the pony".
Truly, this is one of the most important lessons of "The Secret".
~Tim Patterson ~
A special 'Thank you!' to Tim Patterson! Tim is a relationship coach affiliated with Nyman Consulting International. He specializes in men's divorce issues.
