Attitude is Everything

This is my dad, Dave Dornbush, inventor, entrepreneur, enthusiast, business man, family man, lover of life. Perfect? No. Inspired? Undeniably. If you were a fly on the wall of my childhood home, you would have heard him continually reminding us that, "Attitude is Everything". It was one of his trademark phrases. My brothers and sisters and I remember this fondly, although at the time I am sure an occasional eye roll or audible sigh followed it's mention.

At the age of 56, he was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer and passed away 2 months later. I was serving an 18 month religious mission in Brazil at the time. My little brother (12 years younger than me) was only 9. My mother had just won an election to become a member of our city council with my father as her biggest supporter and campaign manager. My sister was 8 months pregnant with his 3rd grandchild. We were devastated.

I'm sure you are familiar with the famous, "Is this glass half empty or half full?" question. People even identify themselves and others by which half of the glass they focus on. Many of us were taught to always focus on the full part of the glass. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful notion.

Most people, when asked what they want in life, respond that they just want to be happy. Numerous organizations and corporations take advantage of that. They push ads selling an endless amount of products and experiences with the promise of happiness attached. Many of us begin to believe that if we are experiencing negative emotion that there must be something wrong, or that maybe we are broken. That's when we try to get rid of it by whatever means necessary. The truth is that trying to resist, avoid, or act out our negative emotion will never make it go away.

But what happens when we choose to accept, feel, and utilize our negative emotion? We grow. We evolve. We transform. And we experience lasting happiness in a truly authentic way. Negative emotion is part of the human experience, and there is freedom in celebrating that experience, in the way it was always meant to be.

I miss my dad. Sometimes I don't want to think about him too hard because it hurts. I want to pretend the hurt isn't there. But when I embrace that hurt, I embrace my dad and I drink in a balance of sadness and joy. Sadness for the fact that he's no longer physically here. Joy for the fact that he was and will always be here in so many beautiful ways.

Our attitude about the positive and negative in the glass of life is truly EVERYTHING. Life is beautiful. Let's drink it ALL in.