I have two choices

Barry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. Whenever someone asked him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" Rumor had it that he had lost a public-relations job because he was so positive even the client got edgy.

Barry was a unique editor because several reporters followed him around from newspaper to newspaper, due to his positive attitude and the deep-seated passion that it would inspire in those around him. Even after reporters found better-paying jobs, they were still committed to following Barry to his new workplace just to warn his coworkers and give him wedgies when no one was looking.

Barry's managerial style really confused me. "I don't get it!" I said to him one day. "You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

(That was before I had a true understanding of bipolar mania, and realized I was always hitting Barry on the upswing.)

Barry chuckled outrageously. "Each morning," he said, "I wake up and say to myself, 'Barry, you have a choice today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' So I choose to be in a good mood.

"Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim, or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn. And every time someone comes to me with a complaint, I can choose to accept their complaining, or I can point out the positive side. I always choose the positive side of life!"

"Yeah, um, right," I said, wondering what that dark lump was on the side of Barry's neck but deciding not to say anything. Instead, I began to look for an escape route. To my left beckoned the door to the dark room. All the photographers were currently out on assignment. If I could duck inside, I might escape.

"You know, you should try some St. John's wort," Barry said. "That stuff will clear the blues right out of you! Have you ever tried it?"

As he searched through his desk, I dived into the darkroom and scurried behind a case of chemicals.

Unfortunately, Barry's intuition was as strong as his perpetual enthusiasm, and he quickly found me, flicking on the lights and smiling a toothy grin that was just screaming for a hammer.

"Life is all about choices!" he said. "When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life!"

"Barry!" I screeched. "You probably just ruined miles of footage by turning on the lights! Mark's going to kill you!"

"Oh," said Barry. "Well, Mark has a choice. He can either be upset about losing his exclusive Pulitzer-winning negatives, or he can see this as a chance to get even better pictures."

"But when is the president getting impeached again any time soon?" I said.

I managed to escape Barry that time by drinking a few chemicals and lapsing into a coma. When they carried me out, he was telling the ambulance squad that we could either feel bad for me for drinking the chemicals, or be glad that now no one would accidentally spill them.

Soon thereafter, I left newspapers to start my own magazine in Alaska. Barry and I lost touch, but I often thought about him when I ate too much candy and got a sugar buzz.

Several years later, I heard that Barry went to cover a bank robbery and was held hostage by three armed robbers. During the stand-off, seventeen of the bullets fired by police went awry and hit Barry.

After eighteen hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Barry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. (He had been shot in the head.) My curiosity was aroused, and when I saw Barry about six months after the accident, I asked him how he was.

He said, "If I were any better, I'd be twins! Want to see my scars?"

"Only if I can re-open them," I replied. I asked him what had gone through his mind when the robbers had held him hostage.

"Well," Barry replied, "the first thing was that I should have had Tony cover the robbery, although he would have been the one in this mess then."

"Probably not," I interjected, although it went unnoticed.

"Then," continued Barry, "as I lay bleeding on the sidewalk and the police were taking care of the paperwork, I remembered that I had two choices. I could choose to resent the cops for ignoring me while I lay dying at their feet, or I could choose to live. I chose to live."

I tried to hide the disappointment on my face. "So weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness? A few brain cells?"

"The paramedics were great, really positive! They kept telling me I was going to be fine." Barry smiled at the memory. "But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"So what did you do?" I asked. "Pass Smiley buttons out to the crowd?"

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Barry. "He asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Then I laughed."

"'Oh swell,' one of the doctors said. 'He's one of THOSE. Can't we just list him DOA? Please?' The other doctor just shook her head and shoved an ether mask on me, to administer the anesthetic.

"I pulled down the mask and told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead!'

"'Shut up, or I'll finish the job,' the doctor said as she shoved the mask back onto my face. So I took their advice and passed out."

Barry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, all of whom since have resigned their fellowships at that hospital and scattered across the country.

I will never forget Barry as long as I live, nor will I forget the lesson he taught me. Every day we have a choice: We can choose to live fully, or we can choose to annoy the stuffings out of everyone around us.

Moral: You too have a choice: You can either send us oodles and oodles of money, or you can let our poor, penniless, innocent children go hungry. Please make the right choice.

Pit of shame:
Read the original version of "I have two choices."