Accentuate the Positive This Instant!

Accentuate the Positive

I’d never laughed so hard, or often … and at work, of all places.

My boss was one of a kind. I’m not even sure “boss” is the right descriptor. When I think of her now, I think “team leader,” “coach,” “mentor,” even “hero.” She had a knack for taking the most boring, mundane, stressful, aggravating, or impossible situations and turning them completely upside-down AND inside-out, so you felt like you’d just been to Disney World, not the office.

Instead of tears of frustration, she gave me sighs of relief. When clients brought insanity, she brought inspiration. When a project made me sick to my stomach, she pained it with gut-wrenching belly laughter. When negativity brewed, she literally sang out, “Ax-sennnnnt yoo-ate the positive… E-liiiiiiiminate the negative!” And when Friday afternoons rolled around, it was guaranteed she’d bring out the guitar and serenade us from one cube to the next. (It’s okay. We worked in the creative department of an advertising agency, not an accounting firm.)

It’s been a few years since I worked for her, my all-time favorite boss. But it’s funny. Her memory doesn’t stay back there, in that time and place. It somehow lives on -- in ME now. Bizarrely enough, I actually become like her on occasion. I respond just as I know she would. It’s the power of a good example.

Consider for a moment the opposite; consider the Bad Example. We’ve all got at least one – parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, relatives, or acquaintances. The people on your “Bad List” made you swear out loud, “I will NEVER (x, y, or z) to ANYONE like (insert name here) did to me!”

But, sadly, those bad examples rarely have the power to stop us from behaving as we most despise. That’s because we don’t learn from others how NOT to be, we learn from them how TO be. So, when we’re under the influence of a bad example, we’re more likely to follow that lead (and kick ourselves later), than to never act as they did in the first place. (Insert the common shocked-and-appalled gasp from women across the land who realize, “I think I’m becoming my mother!”)

What if the power that all of your bad examples hold on you today could be broken by the miracle of just one good example? What if you became the kind of person you most admire? What if that person, role model, and hero already exists? Could you get to know Jesus Christ so intimately that perhaps your thoughts, words, and deeds could become His?

“He (Jesus Christ) is your example, and you must follow in his steps.”
-- 1 Peter 2:21
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (Paul)
-- 1 Corinthians 11:1