“We focus on the negatives, losing ourselves in the ‘problem.’ We point to our unhappy circumstances to rationalize our negative feelings. This is the easy way out. It takes, after all, very little effort to feel victimized.”

-- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Are we victims or are we students? These are the two ways of looking at life events and especially those we wish would not befall us.

I don’t like feeling like a victim and this is especially true since I like to see myself as a strong woman. But there are those times when I wear the rut deeper by going over and over about how unfairly I am being treated by a person or circumstance.

If we think there is a reason for our life here on earth, we may want to consider that events are life teachers. Rather than sink deep into a morass of misery and feeling totally helpless and unhappy, we can decide to look at ourselves and wonder if there is something of value in this experience.

Will I learn that believing that things have to be a certain way always leads to unhappiness? Or will I learn that maybe I need to change the way I look at life or change something about me? Does my persisting in saying 'it shouldn't be this way' lead to my feeling better?

I do have a choice, though so many times my automatic response would be to think of all the reasons I have for feeling upset about a particular event. I so rarely consider that maybe this unhappy situation is a necessary step to a happier one.

~ Judy Walden

“Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we've learned and create something.”