“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

“No one is pure evil. Find the best in everybody. Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you.”

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop people who don’t want it badly enough.”

“We can’t change the cards we’re dealt, just how we play the hand. If I’m not as depressed as you think I should be, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

Dr. Randy Pausch is a Tigger. Even in the face of death, he’s maintaining a bounce in his step. Has he wept? Has he grieved? Of course. But he’s not in denial. He’s just not going to become an Eeyore. Life’s too short for that, very short.

Victor Frankl was a Tigger. Frankl, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, wrote: “Everything can be taken from man but one thing, the last of human freedom — to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (Man’s Search for Meaning) Frankl, though surrounded by some of history’s worst suffering and atrocities known to humankind, chose an attitude that refused to allow his environment to dictate his attitude.

The Apostle Paul was a Tigger. He once wrote to the church at Corinth: “I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.” (2 Corinthians 7:4) Among the troubles he had experienced were beatings, stonings, multiple shipwrecks, dangers from rivers, bandits, his own countrymen, and false brothers. He had labored without sleep and food, been constantly on the move. He had known the discomforts of cold and being deprived of clothing, presumably while he was imprisoned. In addition he also faced the pressure and concern for the churches he had started. (2 Cor. 11:25-29) Yet, Paul’s joy abounded.

And if the Apostle Paul had been present at Dr. Randy Pausch’s final lecture, his favorite line might have been, “If I’m not as depressed as you think I should be, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

You have a choice today. Will you choose to be an Eeyore or a Tigger?

The Rev. Michael Helms is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie.