(Based on a true story)
Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say.
When someone would ask how was he was going, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins."
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivate. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Knowing his style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You cant be positive all of the time. How do you do it ?"
Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."
"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.
"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood. The bottom line: Its your choice how you live your life.
I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start up my own business.
We lost touch with each other but often thought about Jerry when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years have past now, and suddenly one day I heard that Jerry had done something that you should never do in the restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. They forced him to take them to the room where the safe was kept. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. This made the robbers panic and they shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and was rushed to the local Trauma centre. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care Jerry was released from hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.
I managed to get to see Jerry about six months after he was released from the hospital. And when I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I was any better, I'd be twins. Do ya wanna see my scars?"
I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what was going through his mind as the robbery took place.
"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied.
"Then as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices. I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked him.
"The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'He's a dead man.' I knew that I needed to take action."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"Well, there was a big, burley nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked me if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses all stopped working on me as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'BULLETS'. Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. So operate on me as if I am alive, and not dead'."
Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.
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