Sometimes the world isn't against you; you're against yourself.
Being on winter break has allowed me to spend some much needed time with some of my close friends and family, and it has been wonderful. Despite the fact that the time was needed and enjoyed, I felt exhausted after most of these encounters with friends and family and couldn't help but wonder why that was.
Then it hit me.
Most of the time that we had together was spent on complaining about our lives. We talked about the family drama over Christmas, break-ups and make-ups, grades, and how every single one of us was overworked and underpaid. The theme of almost all my conversation could have very easily been poor pitiful me. When I finally became aware of this I was extremely discouraged and thought to myself, "wow everyone's life is bad or what is the problem with today's world," you can only imagine my surprise when I realized that we, ourselves, are the problem.
Yes, you read that correctly. You could be the what's wrong with your life. I am guilty of this myself. Here lately, I have been consumed with the idea that my life, just to put it plainly, is hard. I get caught up thinking about things such as why can't my major be easier, why can't work be less stressful, why is it always me that everyone comes to with their drama, why does it have to be my family that sometimes just cannot get along, and so many more debilitating thoughts. If you aren't careful you can suck yourself into a very toxic way of thinking. You can choose to be helpless. Now this is not to say that bad things don't happen, they do, and sometimes life is hard. Some days you over-sleep, spill your coffee and then hit every red light on your way to work, only to realize when you actually get there that you left your phone at home. Some days are bad and that's okay. However, we cannot allow ourselves to get stuck in a place where we think everything happens to us.
Your experience in life is not about what is happening around you, it's about how you react to what's happening.
When you start to adopt this way of thinking it then becomes almost impossible to feel helpless in our own lives. We gain the freedom to choose how we feel, and it's absolutely liberating. We are authors of our own stories. Occasionally we have to FORCE things to positive. Instead of thinking "I wish my job was easier", we could think "wow I am so thankful that I have a job" or instead of "I think school is just too hard", we should start to think "I am so glad that I have the opportunity to attend college". When this way of thinking is in motion, our lives drastically improve, whether we want it to or not. We become happier people and regain our right to autonomy. I know that since I have become more aware of this, I experience life differently. I now take an active part in creating my own happiness. When we are all in control of our own happiness, rather than each other's, the world slowly starts to become a better place.
We have to stop allowing life to just happen to us, but rather be proactive in living.
