Attitude determines the altitude of life.

Host: The morning sun crept through the warehouse windows, sliding across the dust and metal like a soft hand over a scar. The air was thick with the smell of machine oil and coffee, and somewhere in the distance, a radio hummed an old song about dreams that never came true.

Jack sat on a broken wooden crate, sleeves rolled up, sweat already glistening on his forearms despite the early hour. His eyes—that familiar shade of storm-grey—watched a cracked motorcycle engine in front of him like it was a puzzle he no longer cared to solve.

Jeeny walked in, her steps light but deliberate, a faint smile resting on her lips. She wore a faded denim jacket and carried two steaming cups of coffee.

Jeeny: “Still fighting that engine, Jack?”

Jack: “It’s not fighting. It’s surrendering slowly.”

Host: She placed one cup beside him and sat on the floor, legs crossed, her hair catching a sliver of sunlight. The light painted her face in gold and dust.

Jeeny: “You look like you’ve been up all night again.”

Jack: “Maybe. Maybe I just forgot what sleep looks like.”

Jeeny: “You know what Edwin Louis Cole said? ‘Attitude determines the altitude of life.’”

Jack: “Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Sounds like something people write on posters to sell optimism.”

Host: He said it with that quiet sarcasm that always coated his pain. A small smile flickered on her lips, the kind that forgave even when it disagreed.

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not optimism, Jack. Maybe it’s truth. Maybe the way we look at the world changes how high we can go in it.”

Jack: “That’s cute, Jeeny. But tell that to someone stuck under a system that doesn’t care about their attitude. You think a smile lifts a man out of poverty?”

Jeeny: “No, but it might keep him from drowning in despair.”

Host: The light grew stronger, spilling through the cracked glass, cutting long, bright lines across the concrete floor. The sound of a passing train trembled through the walls, shaking a few tools off their hooks.

Jack: “You always make it sound so easy. Like all we need is a good mindset and the universe will clap for us.”

Jeeny: “I never said easy. I said possible. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “Possible, huh? So when life keeps hitting you, when every plan fails, when the people you trust walk out—what then? You just ‘adjust your attitude’?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because that’s all you can adjust sometimes. You can’t control the storm, Jack. But you can control whether you build a roof or a tomb.”

Host: Jack’s hands froze over the wrench. For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t breathe. The sunlight caught in his eyes, reflecting something softer—a memory, maybe.

Jack: “You sound like one of those self-help gurus.”

Jeeny: “No. I sound like someone who’s learned the hard way that bitterness builds nothing. You think I haven’t fallen? I’ve just refused to live there.”

Jack: “Refused. That’s a nice word. You can refuse when you’ve got options. Most people don’t.”

Jeeny: “Options start in the mind, Jack. That’s what Cole meant. Attitude isn’t about pretending the pain isn’t real. It’s about refusing to let the pain define your ceiling.”

Host: The warehouse fell quiet except for the soft ticking of a clock somewhere above them. Dust drifted lazily through the beams of light—tiny fragments of the world floating free.

Jack: “You ever notice how people who talk about attitude are usually the ones who already made it? Easy to preach altitude from the top of a mountain.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the ones at the bottom need it more.”

Jack: “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I have to. Or else what’s left? We blame everything and rise nowhere. You think I started with wings, Jack? I didn’t even have ground. But I learned one thing—life doesn’t lift those who keep looking down.”

Host: He looked at her now—really looked. The sweat, the tiredness, the resolve in her eyes. It wasn’t naive faith. It was the faith of someone who had survived something unnamed.

Jack: “You know, my father used to say almost the opposite. He said life’s altitude depends on who’s holding your ladder.”

Jeeny: “Then build your own.”

Jack: “And when the rungs break?”

Jeeny: “You climb on your hands. That’s attitude.”

Host: The radio changed songs—an old blues track about rising from dust. Jack laughed softly, a rare sound, warm and bitter all at once.

Jack: “You’re impossible.”

Jeeny: “No. Just stubborn. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “And you think that’s enough? To change where you end up?”

Jeeny: “I know it is. Think of Mandela—twenty-seven years in a cell, and he still walked out with grace. He couldn’t change the bars, but he refused to let the bars change him.”

Jack: “You’re comparing attitude to history now?”

Jeeny: “History is built on attitude. Every revolution, every survival, every comeback begins with a thought that says, ‘I will not stay down.’”

Host: Her voice carried like music against the old metal walls, a pulse of something larger than the room.

Jack: “So, what are you saying? That people fail because they think wrong?”

Jeeny: “No. They fail because they stop believing there’s a way up. Attitude doesn’t promise success—it gives you a reason to keep climbing.”

Host: Jack ran his hand over his face, exhaled hard, and leaned back. For a moment, he said nothing.

Jack: “You ever get tired of fighting gravity, Jeeny?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But that’s how I know I’m still alive.”

Host: The light now filled the warehouse, wrapping both of them in a kind of quiet radiance. Outside, the morning had fully arrived—children laughing in the street, the world waking.

Jack: “You know, when I was younger, I thought success was about talent. About being smarter, faster, better. Now I see it’s mostly about staying vertical.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s altitude, Jack. Not just reaching heights—but staying above the weight trying to pull you down.”

Jack: “So you think I can just choose that?”

Jeeny: “You already did. You’re still here.”

Host: Her words landed like a soft hammer—gentle but unyielding. Jack’s eyes glistened, though he’d never admit it. He looked back at the broken engine, at his own hands, at the light on the floor.

Jack: “Maybe attitude’s just the engine we forget to fix.”

Jeeny: “Then let’s rebuild it.”

Host: She reached out, took the wrench from his hand, and smiled. The light hit her face, a glow that didn’t belong to the sun—it came from somewhere deeper.

Jack: “You make it sound like we can fly.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not today. But maybe today, we stop falling.”

Host: A small silence followed, filled with the hum of machines and the breath of hope. Jack turned the wrench again, slowly, deliberately. The engine gave a faint click—a small sound, but alive.

Jeeny smiled, eyes shining.

Jeeny: “See? Altitude.”

Jack: “Yeah.” (He looked up through the broken glass roof at the brightening sky.) “Maybe the view’s been waiting for us all along.”

Host: The camera would pull back now—the warehouse, the city, the faint sunlight spreading over a skyline that never stops trying. Two figures, tiny but unbroken, working side by side amid the dust and light.

Because sometimes altitude isn’t measured in miles or mountains.
It’s measured in moments—when someone decides to rise again.