Your thoughts on situation makes you sad

We try to control everyone around us. We pay more attention to negative things. We carry the burden of past with us. We take decisions emotionally. We compare ourselves with others. We allow our past to haunt us. We try to impose our thoughts on everyone. We don’t try to sort out conflicts. We are more interested in other’s life. We never try to achieve what we want. Because they envy other people’s happiness.

They resent the fact that some people can choose to be happy even when things aren’t going their way. They don’t know how to do that. Not everyone in the world understands that happiness is a choice. Their view is always that of the victim even if they won a prize. If you talked to them about it, they will say it rained that day and they had to take the bus to deposit the money because their car broke down the week before and the bus was late….

I call people like that emotional vampires. You feel drained just having spent some time around them. When I was dating in my 40s, one of the top criteria I had on my list was “positive outlook on life.” I had no intention of being with an emotional vampire and would not make exception. I am a very positive person. Even when I was going through my divorce, my go to phrase was “she can take my money but she can’t take my happy.” Being rid of that woman was a very positive move in my life.

There are a number of things that make me less miserable: Praising God. Talking to a friend. Ensuring I do not associate with people who I know do not like or respect me. Pursuing my career. Keeping active. Eating Healthy. Keeping in touch with family. Accepting myself. Forgiving myself. Accepting God’s forgiveness. Being kind to others. Forgiving others. Helping people in need. Being content with only being good at what I am good at. The odd takeaway. Listening to uplifting music. Getting a decent nights sleep.

Nobody and nothing “makes me miserable.” That’s not because I’m such a happy camper, nor am I a naive Pollyanna-type. I just learned something critical along the way. I learned that ALL feelings are MY choice. No matter what anyone does, no matter what random event happens, no matter what world event comes down the pike, I always have a choice over how I feel about it. I, personally, detest feeling miserable. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, wore it ’til it was ripped and bloody, sold it at a garage sale. Hell to the nope. Ain’t doin’ it.

Feeling miserable is based entirely on the fictional idea that someone else can make me feel a certain way. Oh, there are payoffs for believing in this particularly nasty little fairy tale. I get sympathy, time off from work, people treat me nicer (sometimes,) and there are times it even pays off financially (frivolous lawsuits, anyone?) There are, however, also serious prices to pay for living in victimhood. The biggie here is that I know it’s living a lie! There are few things in this world that are more exhausting than that! Being a perpetual victim can cost me friends, money, my health (big time!) and more.

Before anyone jumps on the “way to blame the victim” bandwagon, that is not what I’m doing here. Are there genuine, authentic victims in this world? Of course there are! An abused child, an innocent bystander who gets severely injured in some sort of violent conflict - yeah, those are victims. I’m talking about the little bullshit game we all play with ourselves where we come up with stories to explain the events that happen to us in life, but those stories always cast us as the hero, the innocent who doesn’t “deserve” what ultimately happened to them, the recipient of someone else’s gossip, attack, or viciousness.

However, if you can just once tell that same story from a responsible point of view, all your victim stories will go up in a puff of smoke. You’ll never be able to kid yourself again (not effectively, anyway!) Playing the victim is throwing away all your power - your ability to respond. Once you really, truly own the fact that “I am 100% responsible for everything that’s ever happened to me,” because it was my choices that led me here, you take your power back - you again have the ability to respond - you have “response-ability.” that, my friends is true power. I wish you well!. Cheers!