My husband Rollin grew up on a dairy farm in Idaho and as a child growing up he was given a lot of chores to do. As a child, when his father gave him a chore he didn’t want to do, he would start to grumble and complain about it, at which his father would simply state, “You can do it the easy way or the hard way…” With that simple phrase his father taught him one of life’s most valuable lessons which is that when there is something in life that needs to get done you have one of two options – you can do it the easy way of having a good attitude and getting to work at it to get it done, or you can do it the hard way of grumbling and complaining and making yourself and everyone around you miserable in the process…but you whichever option you go with you still have to get it done.

I love the impact my father-in-law’s words had in shaping my husband’s life and his attitude. Those who know my husband would tell you that he gets right to work and gets whatever job needs to be done without complaining about it. There are plenty of chores he doesn’t necessarily enjoy doing but he never grumbles about them. He simply digs in and works hard until the job is done. And that example has been tremendous for our children to observe over the years and it has impacted their lives for the better as well. Not only has it taught them to work with a good attitude but it has also served to help their own self-confidence and self-worth as they accomplish hard things.

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.”  -Theodore Rubin

Each day we wake up we have a tremendous amount of control in how our day is going to go. Even though the reality is that we have very little control of our circumstances we will face throughout any given day, the fact is we have absolute control on the attitude we will face those circumstances with.

“You can’t have a good day with a bad attitude and you can’t have a bad day with a good attitude.”

Here’s looking forward to having a great day because of our great attitude!

~Amy