Bob Haases Another Can Of Worms

Last week my wife and I spent a few days at our cottage in northern Wisconsin.   It was really hazy and foggy out all the time we were there.  For some people they might have been upset or disappointed with the crummy weather we were having, but I thought it was great because of the beautiful hoar frost that developed and pictures that I was able to take.  When we got back I posted some of the pictures on my Flickr website and received many great comments about how beautiful these pictures were.

If we look hard enough we can generally find something good about most things in life.  The trouble is that most of us, including myself at times, tend to find the bad and overlook the good.  When things aren’t going the way we want we tend to develop a bad attitude and this allows us to see even more bad than we normally do.  Sometimes we even try to share that bad attitude with others and make them feel as bad as we do.

Life is not easy and life is not always fair and yet I have always found that it could always be worse.  I have also found that life is often what we make it.  There is a lot of truth about how much better life is when you look at it with the idea of the glass being half full rather than half empty.  If you take the time to look back and think about the people you have met in your lifetime, you will probably find that those that seemed to be happy and successful looked at life in a positive way most of the time.  It is like the chicken and the egg question about what came first.  Were these people happy because they were successful or were they successful because they looked at life in a positive way.

If you surround yourself with negative people it tends to rub off and it changes your perspective on life.  If you surround yourself with positive people you tend to be more positive in everything you do.  When people start to complain about something just think about something good and reply back with a positive comment.  They might wonder how you can be so happy and positive about things when life is so bad.  Maybe it is because when you are more positive about things life really is better and you are happier.

When people used to complain to my dad about what a rotten winter it was he used to tell them that it was “the best time of the year …. cold weather and taxes”.  Maybe some of his optimism has rubbed off on me because even though I complain about some things that I think could be better, I try to be optimistic most of the time.  That makes me happy!!!

The next time someone starts complaining about things just tell them that “this is the best time of the year… cold weather and taxes”.   They might think you are crazy… but you will probably walk away much happier than agreeing and thinking about all the things that are bad.  

Bob Haase is the host of “Outdoors Thursday” heard Thursday mornings at 9:10 a.m. on News-Talk 1450 KFIZ.