choose to be positive
At the beginning of my 8 a.m. class one Monday at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been very good. He’d had his wisdom teeth extracted. The young man then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so cheerful. His question reminded me of something I'd read somewhere before: “Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to approach life that day.” I said to the young man. “I choose to be cheerful. Let me give you an example,” I continued. The other 60 students in the class ceased their chatter and began to listen to our conversation. “In addition to teaching here at UNLV, I also teach out at the community college in Henderson, about 17 miles down the freeway from where I live. One day a few weeks ago I drove those 17 miles to Hender...