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Life can make you bitter, or better, or so they say.
Yesterday I had two encounters with bitter people. And it made me stop and think, why do some people become bitter and angry as they age?
It’s a choice. Every day, when we get up, we can make a choice to be bitter, or better.
My grandmother had a massive stroke at the age of 38. It almost killed her…but it didn’t. She was partially paralyzed on one side and spent the rest of her long life (into her 70s) using a cane or a wheelchair. She couldn’t use her right arm or hand (her dominant side.) She had difficulty speaking.
Some people may have thought they would have been better off if they died.
But not my grandmother. She was one of the most positive people I knew. She kept going. She loved life. She loved her family. She had a garden. She cooked for her neighbors.
She was never bitter. She laughed and loved and persevered. She chose to be better.
One of the bitter people I encountered yesterday had been a semi-successful business person who encountered disappointments in life at a few turns. In the midst of one of their setbacks, they once said to me, “But, I followed all the rules!”
They didn’t achieve the end result expected in their career nor in their personal life. They didn’t…