Our attitude is our choice:

I am so struck by this reality as we journey towards the end of the pandemic. It seems to me that many people carry a determined bleakness whilst others carry a similarly determined attitude of positivity. This has been very much a lesson that has been ‘punched’ in to me in the past. I am going to repeat a story that I shared a number of years ago.  It was at an annual MRI scan, a few years after my surgery, when I received a dig in the ribs from my wife because she had seen that my surgeon was in the MRI reception area – I braced myself.  He came up to me, and despite it being 4 or 5 years since he’d operated on me, he seemed to remember not only who I was but what I was hoping to do. When he asked me if I had taken the job as a headmaster, I said no, and fell in to the posture of ‘poor old me’. This is one of the most lethal mental attitudes for us as human beings. He quickly followed up by telling me how close I was to being deemed inoperable because I had so much tumour wrapped around my brain stem. He said that to see me being able to walk and talk was a MIRACLE.   The killer line was telling me that we must always dwell on what we do have and can do rather than lamenting and dwelling in the space of I can’t and I don’t have.

This powerful message still remains with me.  I think the title of this blog is so true – if we can teach our children to be thankful for what they do have and can do it will go a long way towards clearing up many of the challenges of mental ill health.