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PROGRAM D-6834
What kind of attitude temperature are you running lately? Is it in positive territory most of the time, or does it tend to be negative too often? We’ve been looking at how to keep our attitudes positive, using an attitude check-up.
Why is that important? Well, primarily because we are representatives of Jesus Christ. People look at us and form impressions of what it means to be a Christian by the way we act. And I don’t have to tell you that positive attitudes are much more attractive than negative ones. But also because attitudes are contagious.
Think about it. If you work or live with someone who is very negative—maybe one of those Minus Five Percenters—it’s not easy to stay positive yourself, is it? Their negative attitude spreads like a disease and infects everyone around them.
Let me just give you one hypothetical example of how contagious attitudes are. Jim says to Donna: “You’re not gonna’ believe what the boss did to me yesterday…” and he proceeds to pass on a negative experience with the boss. Donna, who has not been having any difficulty whatsoever with the boss, starts thinking about what Jim said. The more she thinks about it, the more she starts to think negatively about the boss.
So, at lunch Donna says to Beth, “You know, I don’t think the boss treats us fairly.” And she passes on to Beth the negative input she received from Jim, which has now become personalized in her mind, as though it happened to her. Now Beth is infected with the negative attitude, and they talk about it more, and it starts to grow.
Each of them passes the negative attitude on to one or two others before the day is over, and by that time the office morale has taken a noticeable plunge down. Why? Because one person’s negative attitude started to spread like a disease.
The way you keep this from happening is to refuse to become an agent for negativism. Jim should never have voiced his own negative feelings to Donna. After all, nothing was solved by infecting Donna with his negative attitude. But even so, Donna could have stopped the spread of the disease by thinking, “Hey, this didn’t happen to me; I don’t have any reason to feel negative toward the boss, so I’m going to stop thinking about it and refuse to spread it.”
When you hear or feel something negative, don’t pass the negativism on to someone else. Stop the disease from spreading.