In Life your Altitude depends on your Attitude.
By Shah N. Khan

Experience and studies indicate that attitude is 
one of the traits that separate average sales people 
and businessman from their highly successful colleagues. 
Many people  believe that it's true in life in general, not 
just sales. Think about the happiest, most successful 
people you know. How do you usually find them? Are
they depressed, negative, or even apathetic? I doubt 
it. They're usually enthusiastic, smiling, and 
positive about life.

People with the "right" attitude have a consistently 
positive outlook about life, about their jobs, about 
what they're doing. They are constantly looking for 
results and taking responsibility.  People who have 
the RIGHT attitude take responsibility for their 
lives. They don't pin their failures on others. And 
they treat each failure as a precursor of the great 
successes to come in its wake. 

The power of faith helps in cultivating positive attitude
and approaches to day-to-day affairs of our lives. By following the commandments of Holy Quran and adhering to the principles of morality emanating from Sunnah we not only cultivate sound habits but also maintain the right attitude. But we must exercise care in interpreting the verses of Holy Quran and different Hadith as differences of opinion exist. Bigotry, dogmatism, fanaticism and despotism have divided the Ummah and obscured the real message of Islam for tolerance, patience, justice, honesty, multi-culturalism, brotherhood, altruism etc.

As mentioned by Ayatullah Mutahari (Shaheed) of Tehran 
University among various sources of error mentioned by the 
Qur'an, one is that of taking conjecture and hypothesis for 
certainty and conviction. If a person were to adhere to the 
principle of putting conviction only in certainties and of not 
confusing between conjectures and certainties, he would not
fall into error.

The second source of error in the reasoning process, which is 
particularly relevant in social issues, is imitation. Most people 
are such that they accept whatever beliefs that are current in their society. They adopt certain beliefs merely for the reason that they were followed by their preceding generation. The Qur'an bids people to carefully scrutinize all ideas and judge  them by the criteria of reason --neither to follow blindly the conventional beliefs and traditions of their ancestors, nor to  reject them totally without any rational justification. Seeking knowledge, earning honest living and helping the poor and needy have been regarded as good as offering prayers. One Western Management Scholars says, "You can have anything you want if you just help enough people to get what they want."

A third common source of error pointed out by the Qur'an is 
Selfish motives that tarnish virtue and merit and a cascade of curtains gallops from the heart towards vision. 

Unless we maintains objectivity and neutrality in every matter, we are unlikely to think correctly. Reason can function properly only in an atmosphere that is free of selfish desires and motives and by virtue of reasoning power and faith we maintain right attitude.

Holy Quran lays greatest possible emphasis on doing justice
in all spheres of our lives and also on seeking knowledge and
pondering over things. Western nations have achieved tremendous advances in science and technology by virtue of their attitudes which are in real essence are not materially different from the teachings of Bible and Quran. 

In their book "Change Your Attitude" Tom Bay, Ph.D. 
and David McPherson say that,

"If you want to soar with the eagles don't hang out 
with ducks. That's an old adage, but it's true. 
Enthusiasm is contagious -- and that works both ways. 
You can't catch it if you're not around it; you can't 
give it if you don't have it. If you want to be 
enthusiastic, if you want to have a good sense of 
humor, if you want to enjoy life, hang around people 
who have that attitude."

This may sound like a materialistic and selfish approach
But their studies do show that it is possible to change
attitudes. We Muslims should derive benefit not only
from modern research but also from the principles
laid down in Holy Quran and Sunnah.
 

Shah N. Khan
Editor, Managers eDigest
http://www.magway.net