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What kind of attitude temperature are you running lately?
Why is a good attitude important? Well, primarily because as Christians 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, 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 downward turn. 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. When you hear or think something negative today, don’t pass it on to someone else. Stop the disease from spreading.