We've been talking in this BT Daily series about living a life with a mind view of half-empty or half-full and helping us understand what we have but pushing us toward having a half-full approach toward life. I learned this at a very young age playing little league baseball. I had a assistant coach on my baseball team. The man's name was Archie Smiley, and he taught me very early by his personal example about living life with a half-full approach. You see, Archie Smiley had, sometime in his youth, blown both of his hands off halfway up to his elbow on both arms with dynamite caps, playing around foolishly with dynamite. And so all he had were stumps halfway down from his elbow to his hand with which to work.

Now Archie Smiley didn't let that deter him. Archie Smiley was an assistant coach on my baseball team. I would sit in the dugout on the bench with him at times and I would watch him reach with his stump into his back pocket, pull a piece of paper out and unfold it, and look at the map for directions as to where he had to go for some type of job or business. I even watched Archie Smiley reach into his white T-shirt that he always wore, with a pocket, and push up his pack of cigarettes with his stump, pull a cigarette out, put it into his mouth, and then reach into his pocket and pull his silver Zippo cigarette lighter out. Open it, strike it, and light his cigarette, put it back into his pocket and smoke that cigarette. He didn't let what he wanted to do...I'm not saying that's maybe what he should have done, but he didn't let that stop him from living his life.

Archie Smiley would also hit his infield practice by having somebody throw a ball to him, and Archie Smiley learned how to swing a bat pretty good, and hit infield practice to us on our team. He didn't stop there. He had a family. And he also had a little business out in the back of his house, out from his garage. It was a bicycle repair business with small washers and small nuts that he did everything to repair bicycles in our hometown, the small town I grew up in.

Archie Smiley decided, after a tragic accident that was his own fault, that he would live a life that was half full. And he did, and he was a successful man. I learned that very, very young. Don't let any adversity, don't even let any tragedy that might come into our life, one we might create, one that comes beyond our own control, to determine how we're going to finish. Decide to live a life that is half-full. It's a mind view. It's an important mind view. And it's different from what is described in the Scriptures as a sluggard who says, "There's a lion in the street. If I go out there, I'm going to be eaten by that lion" (Proverbs 22:13). You don't wanna be like that. You wanna be an individual who has courage, confidence and goes out into the streets of life and attacks it.

That's BT Daily. We'll come back for part four in this series and talk a little bit further about having a positive, half-full approach to life. Join us next time.