Attitude: The Secret of Retaining Happy Relationships

Attitude: The Secret of Retaining Happy Relationships

We have to deal with masses of diverse and complex natured people in the world. Maintaining happy relations with them in different places and different situations is not an easy task. It requires so many skills, judgments and compromises. But I think the most essential requirement is our own attitude. I remember somebody said, “Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.” We are in charge of our Attitudes.” Thus attitude is a secret of retaining happy relationships.

Now let us reflect on what is an attitude? What are the types of attitudes? How is attitude developed? Is it possible to develop an attitude? Finally, how to develop positive attitude to maintain happy relationships?

As per Merriam-Webster Online, attitude means the way you think and feel about someone or something. In simple words, it is your tendency of looking at something. In still simpler words your view point, your own perception. As everyone has a view point, everyone will have some attitude. A half filled glass of water is perceived as 50% empty by one and 50% full by another. Someone says, “I hate math.” Some may say, “I love math.” I think, likes, dislikes, allergies, aversions and such notions are all related to attitudes. Although there are so many attitudes, basically there are two ways of thinking, negative and positive.
I remember a short story here. There was a six year old girl stalking her mom to buy her some stuff from the mall, while her mom was in the middle of some important work. To get rid of her, she

grabbed a piece of news paper lying around, tore it in several pieces and asked her to fix it before going to the mall. She thought her daughter will not return even after an hour. But the girl came back in ten minutes with the paper fixed perfectly. The mom did not realize that there was another side too on which there was a big ad with a large simple picture. So there are two ways of thinking; one may be complex another easy. It is your choice.

How you react to a situation depends entirely upon your attitude. You can be miserable or you may feel blessed. Once, a couple was heading work to attend an important meeting when they found the traffic jam on the highway. It came to light that some accident had just taken place and it was going to take a while to clear the traffic. The woman started cursing and yelling, “Just if we had left five minutes early we would have gone ahead and reached the destination on time. Now it is going to be late and bla bla bla………..” At the same time in the other lane a woman was saying, “Thank God, we did not go five minutes early otherwise we might have been the part of an accident.”

If we perceive positively our relations are most likely to be sweet and happy. This reminds me of a very funny story. One newly born baby mosquito was sent by his parents to go and explore for the food in the night. When the baby mosquito returned in the morning, his parents enquired, how was the night? The baby mosquito answered, “Fantastic. Where ever I was going people were clapping!” We must maintain this baby mosquito attitude to remain happy.

Attitude is not an instinct. Attitude is a learned behavior to describe a thing in a particular manner. Attitude is usually derived from personal experience or other’s experience. It is also developed if we are impressed by someone or through media. The examples are many: Telling children the cop is coming, getting scared when the Friday comes on 13th day of the month, Black cat mewing in the dark

of night and so on. As soon as we see a person, we instantly and unconsciously decide he is a good person or he is not a friendly one or whatever. It is not a gut feeling; but actually we do it on some basis or some experience though we might not be able to connect. What I mean to say is we can easily develop negative or positive attitude. It is very much like wearing colored pair of glasses. If we wear red colored pair everything is red, if it is green everything is green.

There is a simple method to develop positive attitude to maintain happy relationships with all during the day. There is a psychological law which states, “Thought follows action.” That means thoughts rush your mind according to your action. If you smile, happy thoughts surface on your mind. The best way is to start your day by looking into the mirror and smile; even without any reason. You will experience all the cheerful ideas begin to rush through your brain and the whole day is joyful. Attitude is a magic wand by which you can change bitter things sweet. Although there are many ingredients needed to maintain sweet relationship I believe personal positive attitude plays the most important role in maintaining happy relations. Attitude means angle of looking at a thing or person. There are mainly two ways of thinking; positive and negative. Obviously, positive approach yields constructive results. Attitude in my opinion is not a natural attribute. It is developed through personal experience or the knowledge imparted by outside agencies including nature and media. As such attitude can be developed. This may not click immediately, but when practiced, we realize it works like a magic wand. We can give it a shot to a simple way. The first thing you do when you rise from bed in the morning is look into the mirror and smile, even without any reason. You will realize wonderful ideas and thoughts will start emerging in your mind and the day starts happily. Once you have developed the art to maintain your attitude positive, your dealings will be automatically positive resulting in happy relationships.