POSITIVE ATTITUDE - POSITIVE GRATITUDE

Positive attitude and positive gratitude are the foundation for a positive life.  Each of them alone can make good things happen, but together they are magic.

A positive attitude without gratitude is unbalanced and results in narcissism where everything is about you and only you.  When you add in a good dose of gratitude, you realize every good thing comes from God, and without the help of other people, you would be Nobody living in Nowhere Land.  Gratitude isn't about you.  It's about other people and God, and about giving them the thanks they deserve.

I am grateful that God loves and accepts me the way I am.  I am also grateful that He loves me too much to let me stay that way.  This is my ultimate reason for hope.  God is on my side.  He wants to fill my heart with his love, banish my limitations, and wash away the plague of negative thoughts from my mind.  God’s love carries away my burden of guilt.  His love not only wipes the slate clean, it also throws the slate away.  God has a plan for my life that is better than anything I can imagine.  There is no limit to how good my life can become when I max out on His love.

I am grateful that God takes all my choices, mistakes, and failures, and turns them into something good.  My mistakes and failures are the launching pad for God's master plan.

I am grateful that God is the source of all good things.  I don't need to figure everything out or worry about the future because my trust is in God.

I am grateful for good health.  Healing is a gift from God and is an expression of His love.  When God created me, He built healing into my body as a reminder of His love.  Every time I am healed, I experience God's love.  If God did not care about me, and I became sick, it would be the end of me.  The world would throw me on the trash heap and let me die.  But that isn't the way God made things work.  God is in it with me for the long haul, and He will heal my body thousands of times until my work on planet earth is done.  It won't be over until God says it's over.

I am grateful that I can walk.  I was once in a car accident and broke both of my legs.  It required three surgical procedures and six months of physical therapy to be able to walk with a limp.  It required years to walk normally once again.  Walking is an enormous blessing.  Going up and down stairs is awesome.  Skipping and jumping are a reason to celebrate. 

I am grateful I can breathe comfortably without shortness of breath.  I once fractured five ribs and punctured a lung.  I learned for the first time what it's like to have difficulty breathing.  If you want to experience how it feels to have breathing problems, try to breathe through a soda straw for a couple of minutes.  You immediate discover that normal breathing is an uncounted blessing.

I am grateful that I can see.  For my entire professional career, I have helped preserve and restore vision to patients who have ocular disease.  I have seen the devastating effects of blindness in my travels around the world.  I have also seen inner blindness where people cannot see the hand of God at work in their lives.  I am committed to the restoration of vision so people can look at the world through eyes of possibility and love.

I am grateful that I can hear.  One of the great joys of sailing in paradise is to hear the sound of the waves on shore and cries of sea birds in flight.  The wind blows through palm trees and coconuts thump on the beach as they fall to the ground.  Waves lap against the hull and gently rock me to sleep in the soft silence of the tropics.  I listen to sails pulling in the breeze as I sail on the ocean of my dreams.  Hearing is awesome.

I am grateful to have a job.  Some jobs are more interesting than others.  Climbing into a King Air 200 turboprop and flying to work on the Indian Reservation is more than a job.  It's an adventure.  I sit in the cockpit watching the instruments as the altitude reaches 14,000 feet and the speed hits 250 knots.   Being a flying doctor rocks my world.

I am grateful when my plane lands safely on the runway.  Flying to work would be a disaster if we landed in a canyon.  When I land at Fort Apache, there is a gaping canyon at both ends of the runway.  Landing in the canyon is bad form and is to be avoided.  Landing on the runway is clearly superior to landing in a canyon.

I am grateful that I survived my trip though pirate alley on my sailing voyage up the Red Sea.  Not everyone was so lucky.  Two yachts passing though the same area engaged pirates in a gun battle three days after we made our passage.  Fighting with pirates is not in my skill set, and I am thankful that the pirates left us alone.

I am grateful that I sailed safely around the world in an eleven year voyage on my catamaran Exit Only.  We had a few lumps and bumps along the way, but we survived.  It was an excellent family adventure.



I am grateful to the physical therapists who taught me to walk once again.  After a car accident in which I broke two legs, I required six months of physical therapy to get back on my feet.  My right knee would not bend and taking even small steps was a major ordeal.  Hard working physical therapists made a major difference in my life.

I am grateful to the blood donors who saved my life.  After a car accident I received seven units of blood because I had internal bleeding.  Without out those blood donors I would not be here today, and the  Positive Thinking Network and the Christian Thinking Network would never have happened.  Because of blood donors, my message of hope goes around the world.

I am grateful to orthopedic surgeons who rebuilt my broken life.  They put metal in two of my legs and cared for my broken ribs and fractured shoulder blade.  Because of them I can walk, skip, run, jump rope, and go up and down the stairs.  They gave me my life back and made it possible to continue my sailing voyage around the world.  Totally awesome.

I am grateful to the nurses who cared for me when I had a broken body.  The ICU nurses labored for nine days to keep me alive, and I can't even remember my time in the ICU.  Ward nurses worked around the clock keeping me comfortable and administering the treatments ordered by my doctors.  Because they did their job so well, I maintained a positive attitude while I was in the hospital.

I am grateful to cricket players and to the eternally long game of cricket.  I didn't know anything about cricket until I was hospitalized for two months in New Zealand.  Cricket came to my rescue during the long nights in the hospital.  Being in the  hospital is easier in the daylight hours.  Bright light streams through windows as visitors and staff pop in and out of the room.  Nights are dark, gloomy, and stretch on for  hours with no end in sight.  During my hospital stay, the Cricket World Cup started at midnight and continued to three or four o'clock in the morning.  Although I didn't know anything about cricket, I quickly learned the rules as I watched during those long night hours.  Cricket taught me an important lesson.  Small things can have big effects.  Even a simple game of cricket can get people through their hard times.  You never know when you are making a difference in someone's life.   

I am grateful for my wife.  How many wives would hop on a thirty-nine foot sailboat for an eleven year sailing voyage around the world?  How many wives would be willing to camp for two to three months a year in the deserts of Arabia and Australia?  How many wives would allow their husband to create more than 100 positive thinking websites after they came home from work?  How many wives would accompany their husband down into the Grand Canyon two weeks a year to treat Native American patients?  How many wives don't use drugs or alcohol?  How many wives stick by your side when you have been run over by the Mac Truck of Life?  My wife does all those things and more.  I am grateful for my wife.

I am grateful for my children.  Sometimes they seem like prickly cactuses, but usually they are more like fragrant flowers.  My children taught me much about God.  Until I had children, I never understood a father's love.  I did not know that a father would do nearly anything to see that his children receive love and that good things happen in their lives.  I have invested more time, money, and effort in my children than in anything else in my life.  In return, I now understand more completely how God loves and cares for me.  God is my Heavenly Father, and God doesn't hold anything back if it is good for me.  God is in it with me for the long haul, and His love and help never fails.  Jesus said that even as an earthly father loves his own children, our Heavenly Father loves us even more and wants good things to happen in our lives.  If we get out of the way and suspend our disbelief, He will work miracles in our lives.  And to top it all off, God gave me two great children to teach me those lessons.  I am a lucky man.

I am grateful that I survived the global tsunami.  My catamaran, Exit Only, was in Thailand at the time of the tsunami.  We pulled up our anchor and sailed out of the bay just minutes before the tsunami struck with horrific force and devastating results.  About an hour after the tsunami, we sailed back into Nai Harn Bay and surveyed the destruction.  If we had been on the beach or in our dingy close to shore when the giant wave struck, we would have been killed.  Fortunately we were in deep water beyond the reach of the tsunamis destructive grip.  That was too close for comfort.  I am grateful we are still alive.

I am grateful for each new sunrise.  It means God has given me one more day to live my dreams.  I made it safely through the night, and today there is no limit to how good my life can become.



I am grateful for each sunset.   I have been sailing all day on the ocean of God's love, and the God who cared for me during the day will sail with me into the night.  I made it through another day and lived God's dream for my life. 

I am grateful for my sailing dreams.  For more than ten years I had Bora Bora on my mind.  Putting my anchor down in French Polynesia was a major life goal.  I wanted to swim in turquoise waters and feel the trade winds blowing on my face.  I wanted to hike to giant waterfalls in the Nuku Hiva jungle.  I wanted to bask on the beach in the Isle of Pines.  I sailed on the ocean of my dreams, and there was no limit to how good my life could become.

I am grateful for flowers because they remind me that God created a beautiful world.  God doesn't do ugly.  Beauty is God's fingerprint.  Every time I see something beautiful, I know that God cares about his world.

I am grateful for rainbows because they mean the storm is over and better weather is on the way.  I've been through hundreds of squalls and more than a few gales sailing offshore.  It's never fun to be in a storm at sea.  At the same time, it's always a joy to see a rainbow; it means there is hope, and better things are on the way.



I am grateful for my websites.  They allow me to send a message of hope around the world in a cost effective way.  For a few thousand dollars a year, I can publish my books and thoughts on the world wide web.  I can also use color graphics that would be prohibitively expensive if I published the same material on glossy paper with four color printing.  There aren't any distributing or printing costs to complicate my life when I publish on the web.  I can reach my arms around the world with more than 140 websites found in the Positive Thinking Network and the Christian Thinking Network.

I am grateful for helicopters.  They are an awesome way to see the Grand Canyon.  Twice a year I spend a week in the Grand Canyon examining the eyes of Native Americans who live there.  I have a choice.  I can make an eight mile hike to the village at the bottom of the canyon, or I can take an eight minute flight in a helicopter and enjoy spectacular views during the trip.  I choose the flight because I have to carry supplies with me for my week in the canyon.  The other option is to ride a horse, but to do that I would have to learn how to ride.  Such is my dilemma.  If you have to have problems, that's the type of problems you want to have.

I am grateful that I have two Land Rover Defenders kitted out and ready for a driving trip around the world.  I have the Defenders parked in Australia and New Zealand ready for the trip.  It's never over in a Rover.

I am grateful I had the opportunity to become an eye surgeon.  For more than thirty-five years I have helped protect and restore vision in curably blind patients around the world.  Now I am focusing on inner vision as I teach people to look at the world through eyes of possibility and love. 

I am grateful that I live in a place and time where I am free.  I have the personal freedom to live my life as I please.  I don't need to ask the king, the sheriff of Nottingham, the local warlord, or the dictator of the decade for permission to live my dreams.

I am grateful for the opportunity to sail on God's Ocean of Love.  His love knocks the wind out of my sin sails.  God's love points me in the right direction and gives me the power to make the trip.