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, (reflect on) 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 as a result a cascade of curtains gallops from the heart towards vision.

Unless we maintain 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.

courtesy: Weekly Paklink Digest... PakLink Interactive Weekly
shahzabek@yahoo.com (Shahzabe Nawaz Khan)