Yesterday I assembled a laundry cupboard. I was pretty proud of myself because a) the instructions included were worse than those you get with something from Ikea and b) I used my new drill. Oh yeah, it’s sturdy. My 8 year-old daughter was mildly impressed so I launched into a “You can do anything you put your mind to” spiel. And it got me thinking about attitude.
Attitudes are ways of thinking. We all know someone who has a ‘bad’ attitude. They’re usually lugging around some heavy baggage and their actions are fueled by the belief that the world owes them something. They might spend a lot of time dreaming about stuff they’d like to do but then convince themselves that it’s all impossible.
Then there are those who think that nothing at all is impossible to achieve and they navigate their way through life accordingly. They dream about stuff and then they put in the hard yards to bring those dreams to fruition. Needless to say, these people are pretty happy with themselves.
People With Positive Attitudes Who Inspire Me…
Jessica Watson– 17 years old, attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, non-stop and unassisted. Resisted a lot of negativity from critics and media before setting sail from Sydney Harbour in October last year. She is now less than 1500 nm from Western Australia. When I was 17 I was smoking cigarettes behind a Chinese restaurant and dying my hair fire-engine red. Jessica has a conquer-the-world attitude and I love it.
Tim Cope– Australian adventurer, writer and film maker who spends his time travelling the world and documenting his journeys. In 1999-2000 he and his friend Chris Hatherly were 20 and abandoned their studies to ride 10,000km through forest and desert from Russia to Beijing. Did I mention the -40 degree winter and that their mode of travel was recumbent bicycles? It took them 14 months and a lot of guts but they made it. Read Off The Rails for the story.
Marianne Elliott – writer, yoga teacher and human rights activist living in Afghanistan, living her best life and encouraging others to do the same.
But it’s not just big adventurers who inspire me. I’ve found that people with positive attitudes attract other people with positive attitudes. And when they get together there is an electrical kind of energy sparkling between them. This is how I feel when I talk to my dear friend Aleks (lawyer, model and open-hearted yummy mummy), my boss John (business owner, motorcycle-riding osteopath) or my cousin Danielle (teacher, thinker and free-spirited song writer ;)).
People with positive attitudes make things happen for themselves (including laundry cupboards).
What are you making happen right now?
Amanda Vella 