“Who’s Got An Attitude Problem?!”

I better raise my hand, here, or else I’d be one huge hypocrite. Besides, I’m not the first person to be described as having an ‘attitude problem’. Something tells me a lot of us who come into the rooms have heard this dandy little turn-of-phrase used against us. Sometimes our attitude problem is nothing more than a description of the in-your-face way that we refuse to be anyone else’s golden boy (or girl). Sometimes it’s a dangerous insistence that we can do it ourselves. This is most dangerous to ourselves, naturally. One of the indicators that we have hit bottom is when we finally admit that we do need help; that we can’t do it alone; that our way really isn’t working.

The literature talks about a changing of our attitudes, how through working the program, our attitude changes into an ‘attitude of gratitude’. Kinda catchy. A little cheesy, too, but like so many other of the little aphorisms we encounter in the program, it has far more truth in it than its simplicity suggests. I’ve heard many people share that they make a gratitude list everyday. That’s not a bad habit to be in. It’s not something I do personally, but I admit there are plenty of times where I’ve stopped to count my blessings.

The mind is an amazingly powerful thing. What philosophers talk about—how we determine our own reality—has a lot more truth in it than we realize. There’s the old saying that if a man feels he’s going to die today, we will probably find a way to make it happen. Scientists have done studies proving that people who believe they are lucky actually are.

The cycle of depression is a damning one. When we hate ourselves and the world around us, we act with negativity. We snap at the hands of those who reach out to us, and our lives become self-fulfilling prophecies. We think everybody hates us, so we treat them in such a way as to ensure that they do. We think there are no opportunities for good things, and so we don’t look for opportunities and shun them when they do manifest. Because we are convinced that good things can’t happen, we sabotage ourselves when they do. Because we think we are unlovable, we act out in ways that prevent others from loving us.

The whole idea of gratitude is to take this vicious cycle and turn it in the other direction. By being grateful for the good things we do have, we can begin to open ourselves up to other good things coming into our lives. Counting our blessings can lead us to a place where we are happy and content, which in turn becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. When we can see the good things that have happened to us, we can begin to accept that, yes, good things can and do happen to us, which helps us to be open to more good things happening. A positive feedback loop is created in the place of the negative one.

We really do determine our own realities. We can be convinced that life will always be terrible, and then it will be. Or we can be convinced that life is good and that wonderful things will occur, or even just that it will get better—and then it does. It takes faith. It takes patience. Sometimes it takes a whole lot of acting as-if. But it works.