Ray’s Daily
September 10, 2020
“Enthusiasm is contagious. Be a carrier.”
Susan Rabin
Some folks have asked me what I am doing these days. When I am not working on recovering from boubts of gout I talk to Nancy on the phone and try to visit her everyday at the skilled nursing facility on the other side of our complex. This morning I have a very early doctors appointment, so here as another Daily fro yesteryear.
~~~
Ray’s Daily first published on September 10, 2007
As I try to adjust to a slower pace for the month or so leading up to my surgery I find myself going a little stir crazy. There is too much going on that I am missing. There are some bright points, people more understand when I tell them I can’t do something, there is more time for frivolous home based stuff, and my dreams during my many naps are more frequent and more interesting. But the truth be told I am having a hard time maintaining my enthusiasm and I hate that. Maybe that is why my friend Vince sent me the following some time ago, if it is I wonder how he knew I was going to slow down.
He wrote: John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”
He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood I choose to be in a good mood.” Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.
“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”
I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.
I saw him about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?”
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”
“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked He continued, “the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied!’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.” Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
~~~
I seldom worry until it is too late, but my attitude sometimes weakens. When it does it is time for me to remember it is my choice and all I have to do is not let it happen.
Ray
~~~
Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, “Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!”
Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, “Never mind, Lord, I found one.”
~~~
To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
Plutarch
~~~
During the jury-selection process, the judge asked a prospective juror some questions. “Have you formed any opinion about the guilt or innocence of the man on trial, Mr. Ferguson?”
“None whatsoever,” Ferguson answered.
“Are you opposed to capital punishment?” the judge asked.
“Certainly not in this case.”
~~~
We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations – we’re doing everything we can to keep our marriage together.
Rodney Dangerfield
~~~
A little boy was eating breakfast one morning and got to thinking about things.
“Mommy, mommy, why doesn’t daddy have very many hairs on his head?” he asked his mother.
“He thinks a lot,” replied his mother, pleased with herself for coming up with such a diplomatic explanation for her husband’s baldness.
Or she was until her son thought for a second and asked, “So, why do you have so much hair?”
~~~
A bore is a person who talks so much about himself that you don’t get a chance to talk about yourself.
~~~
Susie is walking around in a supermarket calling out, “Crisco, Crisssssssco!”
Soon a store clerk approaches and says, “Lady, the Crisco is in aisle D.”
Susie replies, “Oh, I’m not looking for the cooking stuff. I’m calling my husband.”
The clerk is astonished. “Your husband’s name is Crisco?”
Susie answers, “Oh no, no, no. I only call him that when we’re out in public.”
“I see,” said the clerk. “What do you call him at home?”
Susie smiles and says, “Lard ass.”
~~~
Life intrudes.
~~~
A man appeared before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
“Have you ever done anything of particular merit”? St. Peter asked.
“Well, I can think of one thing,” the man offered. “Once, on a trip to the Black Hills, out in South Dakota, I came upon a gang of bikers, who were threatening a young woman. I directed them to leave her alone, but they wouldn’t listen. So, I approached the largest and most heavily tattooed biker and smacked him in his face, kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring and threw it on the ground. I yelled, “Now, back off or I’ll ruin you all!”
St. Peter was impressed. “When did this happen”? He asked.
“Just a couple of minutes ago.”
~~~
Woman shopping for wallpaper to clerk: “Now we’re getting somewhere. That’s the exact opposite of what I’m looking for.”
~~~
A man went to see his doctor because his hands kept shaking.
“Do you drink much?” asked the doctor.
“No,” said the man. “I spill most of it”.
~~~
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”
Henry David Thoreau
~~~
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than twenty years to people who want to start their day on an upbeat. If you have system overload because of our daily clutter, let me know and I will send you the information via mental telepathy. If you have not been getting our daily you can request to be added by e-mailing me at raykiwsp@gmail.com. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are more than 2000 readers from around the world.
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