About five years ago, I was riding the long island rail road during the summer at rush hour.
Nothing much in this world is more miserable than that if you have ever been on that train. Loud, crowded, hot, and did I mention crowded?

No one is talking let along smiling. Then I hear this voice. Laughing, making jokes, chatting with people. I peek across the aisle and see the train conductor smiling, talking to people, playing with the kids on the train. And it seemed that the less people wanted to smile or talk, the more this guy amped up his energy level. He really was not put off by the attitudes of the passengers. He was doing his thing and smiling every step of the way.

A few minutes passed and he come to collect my ticket. I asked him what it was that allowed him to be so joyful on such a miserable, hot and crowded train ride. After all, this was the only train ride I was taking that day, but it was his full time job and he probably had spent 8 plus hours on this route today and every day this month.

He said to me three things that have forever been branded into my mind.
1) What is there not to be happy about, I am getting paid to play on the biggest train set in the world.
2) He then pointed to the numbers on his hat and said, “This is what I do.”
3) He then took off his hat and showed me a picture of his three children and said “..but this is who I am.”

It took me years to fully appreciate what he meant and five years later, I am still working on it. I am grateful to him for sharing this lesson with me.

I think the biggest lessons we can all learn from this are that we always have the ability to choose our attitude and to keep things in perspective no matter what the circumstances.

Dr Doug