Thermometers and Thermostats

I'm reading Andre Agassi's book called Open. I've never been much of a tennis fan but of course I know who he is. The day of my car trouble I picked up his book, cause it was there, and got totally involved. I highly recommend it.

He has a close circle of friends, people he goes to when he needs certain things. Each friend has a special place in his world. His 'advisor' on things personal is a friend, J.P., a one-time minister. Andre is on his way to meet who will become his new wife, Stefani Graff, and he is nervous so he calls for a pep talk. J.P. tells him:

'Andre, he says, some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You're a thermostat. You don't register the temperature in a room, you change it.'

That is a very interesting way of looking at things. What do you want to be? Do you just want to feel the temperature of the room or do you want to change it? I want to be the one to change it in a positive manner. To do that I have to change the way I think of myself. I don't want to just go in and gauge the temperature, if it is cold or sad or ornery, I want to change it to warm, sunny, happy and bright. So I have decided that from now on I'm going to be a thermostat.

When I enter the room I am going to do my best to change the temperature in that room from cloudy with a chance of rain to warm sunshine and bright blue skies.

How can I do that you may ask? Well, by being sunshine and blue skies myself. I feel that everyone of us has the ability to be a termostat, to change the atmosphere around us for the better, just by being happy ourselves.

No, we won't be that way every day, but if we work towards it, it will be come the norm, the way you are most of the time.

I have also found that if I am in a down mood and a friend is in a down mood and I take it upon myself to make that person feel better, no matter how I feel, when I come out of the other end, I find that I too, am in a better mood. You may have been faking it at the beginning, but in the end, you will find that in making the other person's day better, you've made your's better too.

As always, the choice is yours, what do you want to be, someone who just feels the tension or gloom in a room and just let it roll over you - the thermometer, or do you want to make a positive change when you enter a room of gloom - the thermostat?

For myself, I pick the termostat, the pleasure I get by seeing a smile on someone else's face, a smile I put there, is a wonderful reward and is worth an elephant's weight in gold!