The more I think about it, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, or say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you…. We are in charge of our attitudes.
—Charles Swindoll
“[L]ife is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.” That sentence resonates as clearly with the tuning fork of truth as any in the English language. Nowhere is its thrust more important than in coping with physical setbacks.
As the above essay asserts: “The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.” This reminds us that the mind, not some external force, is the wellspring of attitude.
The following personal profile tells of a couple and their battle with a disease that some see as a living hell. This couple see it as part of the pith and marrow of life.
Another Iron Horse
Baseball's Lou Gehrig was known as the Iron Horse. He played in over 2,000 consecutive New York Yankees’ games, a string spanning fourteen seasons, a durability record that stood for fifty years. In 1939 a devastating disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, (ALS) broke his string. Gehrig died two years later. Today, reflecting his fame, the affliction is commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease.
While it now has a colorful name, the cause of the disease is unknown, and it remains incurable.
Over ninety percent of its victims die in less than five years, some in less than two. According to the University of California at San Francisco ALS Center, the disease is more common than generally perceived. There are 5,600 new cases in the US each year; sixty percent are men, mostly between age forty and seventy. About one in 1,000 Americans will be stricken by the disease.
Orange County, California's Edward J. McNeill should be known as the Iron Horse of ALS. He and his usually healthy, vivacious wife, Charlotte, have coped with his ALS for more than 30 years, and in spite of some profound setbacks are still going strong.
When asked how he has been able to live with the disease for so long, Ed pugnaciously replied: “I don't live with it. It has to live with me, and I feel sorry for it.”
John Milton wrote: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven.” While they lived in different centuries, Milton would certainly have applauded Ed's attitude.
Diagnosed in 1979, Ed was a key executive with an international trade associatio
