I choose the positive side of life."
 
"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes, it is," he 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 choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.
 
I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door. Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.
 
Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man." I knew I needed to take action."
 
"What did you do?" I asked.
 
"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "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 breath and yelled, 'Bullets!'  Over their laughter, I told them, I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry 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. Attitude, after all, is everything.
 
as related by Rabbi Baruch Lederman