Makin’ it Great! By Cleo       E-mail forwards are the devil. They come uninvited into your life and really wreck your day with either obscenely high levels of perkiness of with sentiments so sickly sweet that even reading one may put you into a diabetic coma. So here it is, the solution to all email forward obnoxiousness: the cynics email forward. READ THIS! LET IT REALLY SINK IN! THEN CHOOSE HOW YOU START THE NEXT YEAR!       Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood (that is apparently induced by prolonged consumption of cocaine-laced Sanka or by delusions) and always has something good, albeit nonsensical, to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" As far as we know, his multiple personality disorder remains undiagnosed, though clearly this statement should’ve been a warning. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Unfortunately, this made poor Michael the frequent target of workplace violence and at least three death attempts. Seeing this utter bullshit really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it? Are you enjoying the effects of mind-altering substances, do you ignore the plights of millions, or were you simply dropped on your head as an infant?"       Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myselves, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be realistic. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to deal with it or I can chose to ignore. I don’t think I need to tell you my choice. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining and their negative energy or... I can point out how much fun having an incurable disease or being abandoned by your spouse can be. I choose the positive side of life. Then I get the hell out of there because that sort of stuff’s contagious.”       "Yeah right, it can’t be that easy." I protested. “Especially when all those people try to hit you in the knees with tire irons.”       "Yes, it is," Michael 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 can suppress everything. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life." I reflected on what Michael said. He and I had always been buddies around the office water cooler, and as my meaningless job continued to suck the joy out of my existence, I wondered if he was using drugs and why he hadn’t shared. Then it occurred to me that perhaps he was sincere, and that thought made my brain cramp. So I went out for some coffee…some Irish coffee: or at the very least some whiskey.

Soon thereafter, I left Tower Industries for an equally unfulfilling but better paying job at a rival corporation. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made stared into the pit of my own despair. Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. Ironically, he had climbed the tower planning to jump after a well-intentioned child explained that neither the Easter Bunny nor Santa Claus existed. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.       I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied. "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds because the sight of staples protruding from a man’s ass has always disturbed me. But I did ask him what had gone through his pea-sized brain as the accident took place.       “The first thing that went through my mind was the well being of my soon to be born daughter," Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live in a world without the Easter bunny and with the knowledge that I couldn’t even kill myself properly or I could forget the whole thing ever happened."       "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Michael continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER, and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes I read, "There is no Santa Claus."       “How did you know that?”       “Why else would they look so worried?”       “Good point, Michael,” I answered, though later it occurred to me that a six foot length of pipe protruding from a man’s abdomen might also cause medical personnel to have looks of desperation.       What did you do?" I asked.       “Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Michael. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. " ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Reality.’ Over their confused laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live my life without it. Get to work on that…I dunno, is that a licorice whip?…sticking out of my belly. Golly gee, I love licorice.’”       Michael 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 adult lives or the lives of misguided children. Attitude, after all, is everything. You have two choices now:       1. Delete this and try to forget you ever read it.       2. Forward it to the people you care about and save them from their own idiocy.