It is early in the morning. The sun has just peeped through the clouds as my cellphone rings.

I would rather early morning calls over late in the day calls. In early morning I don’t worry someone is calling me because something’s wrong. The few people who call early seldom if ever call with a problem.

This time it’s a message from my friend Becky. “Good morning,” she says. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

She attached a stunning photo of clouds that looked like a work of art. Actually it was. It was nature’s beautiful morning art.

Becky is one of those people who always think it’s a beautiful day. She bubbles over with the joy of life.

No wonder she’s one of my favorite people.

Fran, another one of my favorite friends, also always thinks it’s a beautiful day.

Her definition of a beautiful day doesn’t rely only on nature.

“Every day I can open my eyes is a beautiful day,” she says. She says she starts her day naming all her blessings, focusing on all the good in her life.

Like Fran, I found when you focus on the good things in your life it also helps to minimize your troubles.

Focusing on the good in your life doesn’t mean your troubles go away. It just means you are able to put those troubles in prospective.

That was very important for me during the traumatic days while I was struggling to recover from the hurricane.

Actually the recovery process wasn’t days or even months. It was just about two years.

During that time I was acutely aware that more that ever I needed to focus on the good in my life.

That’s also when all the positive people in my life took on greater importance.

Just as we can catch a cold from someone we can also catch an upbeat spirit. So maybe it’s accurate to say someone’s good mood or bad mood is contagious.

I had a friend I was trying to help whose every sentence was about the ills of this world and the troubles in her life.

I might have helped her a little bit but not much. But when I was around her for a period of time I found her bad mood was contagious. I was starting to feel guilty about being a happy person.

Actually, it’s one of Fran’s favorite expressions that comes to mind whenever I’m getting bogged down in a burdensome worry.

“Do you want a better day?” Fran asks. “If you want a better day, make a better day.”

She believes we can make our own happiness by our thought process.

I watched her go through one of the worst times in her life when she could no longer afford the escalating mortgage payments and lost her home.

She had to move from her wonderful waterfront home to one that defied polite description. She had to take what she could afford.

Through that long, ugly process that must have been gut-wrenching for her whenever we asked her how she was doing she said “wonderful.”

It wasn’t a lie. It was just Fran making the best of her circumstances.

My point to telling you all this is to emphasize it’s isn’t what we have that determines our happiness. It’s our attitude.

When we get behind the wheel of our car we determine where we will go. Our state of mind is the gas that propels us through life.

I think as we age it’s harder to do what we could once easily accomplish. That’s when our state of mind becomes even more important.

When I get up in the morning, the early morning walk I used to cherish has gotten harder.

With each step I take I’m battling new neuropathy foot pain. I also have to wear a compression wrap to help with my knee pain.

So how do I feel after a 3-minute walk?

Victorious. Strong. Thankful. Grateful for the walk, thankful for all I saw and experienced during my walk.

I am thankful for the neighbors that greet me and pass a few words.

I am thankful for the little bird with the sweetest tweets that stayed with me at the end of my walk.

It’s easy to see why my early morning prayer is “Thank you God. Thank you that I can walk.”

I know it’s important to focus on what we can do, not what we can’t do.

There is so much good in each day.

I always thank God for the gift of a new day. I don’t think we should take that day for granted.

Instead, embrace it and cherish all the little joys that comes with it.

I hear some people say it gets on their nerves when store clerks end each transaction with you by saying, “Have a good day.”

Maybe we hear it so much but it’s always nice to be reminded we are in charge of what kind of day we will have.

Will you have a good day?

You can but not all of that day is under your control.

But no matter what comes our way we can appreciate each day more when we focus on the wonderful wonders of everyday life.

Email Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.