Focus on the Good!

"Dad, My Teacher hates me!" He exclaimed. "She hates everybody - She yells at us all the time. She's old-school" ( Where on earth did that come from? Do grade school children even know what old-school means? Maybe she's an older woman, I finally surmised. Can't wait for Parent Teacher conferences!)

These comments come but a few short weeks after he informed me what a nice Teacher he had. How he liked her the best of all his Teachers this year.

My, how a few weeks can change a young boy's outlook! ( I'm guessing a few of the little girls in his classes might echo at least some of his sentiments. )

Press on, i urged him. Focus on the good. Just keep being polite and nice to your classmates and Teachers. We can't let one person's bad mood or vocal reactions ruin our day, can we?

Found this in Philippians 4 this morning:

" Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice.

Let your forbearance be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Perseverence

If great success were possible only to men of great talents, then there would be but little success in the world.

It has been said that talent is quite as much the ability to stick to a thing, as the aptitude to do it better than another. "I will fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." This statement of General Grant does not indicate the man of genius, but it does show the man of indomitable perseverance, a perseverance to which he owed all his success, for it is well known that he was a very modest, and by no means a brilliant man. The key to his character was pertinacity: the secret of his success was perseverance.

"I will to-day thrash the Mexicans, or die a-trying!" was what Sam
Houston said to an aide, the morning of the battle of San Jacinto.
And he won.

The soldier who begins the battle in doubt is half beaten in advance.

The man who loses heart after one failure is a fool to make a beginning.

There is a great deal in good preparation, but there is a great deal more in heroic perseverance. The man who declines to make a beginning till everything he thinks he may need is ready for his hand, is very apt to make a failure. The greatest things have been achieved by the simplest means. It is the ceaseless chopping that wears away the stone.

The plodder may be laughed at, and the brilliant man who accomplishes great things at a leap admired; but we all remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare; the latter, confident of her powers, stopped to rest; the former, aware of his limitations, persevered and toiled laboriously on—and he won the race.