HOW HAVE YOU KEPT A GOOD ATTITUDE?

When my mother passed away in 1969, I was devastated. I wrote this to help me
live my life like I knew she would have wanted me to. It has been my guide ever since. It has worked.

MY CREED
It is today, not tomorrow.
This is today; yesterday is history.
Every morning when I wake up, it will be today.
I will start each of my todays with a positive attitude.
I will not criticize anything, as it has accomplished nothing.

I refuse to utilize my time on things that accomplish nothing.
Today, I have one thing in which I know I am equal with others: time.
We all draw life’s paychecks in hours, minutes, and seconds, no favorites.
Today, I will not waste any of the time I have been given.
The minutes I wasted yesterday are already too costly to me.
Today, I refuse to use my time worrying about what might happen.
Instead, I’m going to utilize my time by working to make good things happen.

Today I am determined to improve myself.
For tomorrow, someone may need me to help them.
I must work hard today so I will not be found lacking tomorrow.
Today, I must accomplish something and not waste any of my limited time.

Today I will do the things I should do.

Today, I will stop doing things that I feel are harmful to me.
By the end of each week, I will be a better person than when I started.
My worth to myself and others is directly proportional to how I use my time.

Things in my world are not different.
I will not imagine what I would do if they were.
I will make the most of my life with what I have now.
I will arrange my schedule to make the most of my talents.

I will take time for my people.
I will not wait till tomorrow to say, “I love you.”
I will treat everyone I encounter in life as a true friend.
If I do these things, it will be a good day for me and those around me.
I DID THE BEST I COULD. I HOPE IT WAS AS GOOD AS I SHOULD.

(In 2026)

To my mother, Alice

I loved you as much as possible in my younger years,
But I didn’t appreciate all you did for me
Until I was an old man,
Looking back on my life.
You died way too young for me to tell you
How much I loved and needed you in my life.
You gave me the foundation that I live by.

You taught me how to handle my daily
Chores and how and why it was
Important to appreciate
Every one of them
To have a life
Worth living

I still judge whatever I do
Against the standard
Would my mother
Be proud of me

I thank you with all my heart and love.
JOHNNY Reseck Jr

Alice visits Siem Reap, Cambodia

(This is very special, written by my son JR III in Cambodia
At the age of 68, he recalled his grandmother from his childhood.

Maybe 1965,
in that double wide
a hundred yards from the ocean sand,
My father’s mother used both arms to shake it up, then
levered two sharp triangular holes,
the normal way back then,
opposite each other
into the top of that big tin can
that held the pineapple juice,
and poured some into a glass just for me.
It’s now more than fifty years
since then,
and I’m alone
in a Cambodian apartment
eight thousand miles from anyone I love,
tipping up a paper and plastic carton, pouring out some last drops of that same sweet tropical memory,
grateful for the heart she watered and grew in me, and the one who still visits
but I just no longer see.
12 April, 2025
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Love you,
By
John Reseck III