Okay, this post is going to take you like a roller coaster through the twisty turns. So hang on and pay attention. But it’s important to you and me. And it will make sense. But like the rides at the amusement park – you don’t want to exit in the middle or you will be dizzy and confused.
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. Dale Carnegie – from “How To Win Friends And Influence People
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut from Mother Night
You may have heard that you can’t choose your circumstances but you can choose your attitude. Or that your attitude makes all of the difference in how you perceive and live your life.
It’s the one thing that you can control regardless of what else is going on around you in your life. No one can force you to have any particular attitude. They can try to influence you (good or bad) but essentially no one can make that choice but you. And that one power, that one guaranteed control is what makes all the difference. It makes a difference in whether you interpret what happens to you and in your life as controlling you, making you a victim by choice.
Or whether you choose to have the knowledge that you have the power over how you interpret life, what you choose to experience about it and how you will process it. In other words, stuff happens to all of us. We then choose whether to believe that we will be controlled by that stuff, whether we will live under the idea that we are a victim of our circumstances, life stinks and “I guess I’ll go eat worms” as the saying goes.
If we choose to wear the victim label, we will rarely recover from anything life throws at us. It won’t get better (because we don’t believe it can) and we will actually suffer more as a victim with no control.
There was a study done years ago about how people perceived their pain. They found that the person’s ability to control, in this case, control of when and how much pain medication they could have, radically changed how much pain the patient reported experiencing.
Essentially, when the patient had little control over receiving pain medication, such as having to call the nurse, ask for medication, be told when and whether they were allowed to have medication yet etc., rather than according to how the patient felt, they perceived they had little control. When all of this lack of control regarding if, when, and how much pain medication was available, the patients reported higher pain, asked for more pain medication and more often than they could receive it.
However, the group that received what was then a new regimen, a pump that instantly delivered pain medication controlled by the patient, used significantly less pain medication and reported lower pain levels. The only thing that changed was that the patient now had control; not only of when they received pain medications but how much.
One would think that when they were in control, the patient would use more pain relievers, but instead, they used significantly less with better satisfaction. So the difference of being at the mercy of the system of delivery – the victim mentality of having no control – versus – having continual control and immediate response to your actions to meet your needs – the in-control, hero mentality – gave actual physical changes to the patient, measured in a variety of ways.
So if having control makes that much difference even in our perception or how much pain we feel, how much more does it affect the rest of our life. Think about times when you felt you could make a difference (energetic, motivated, positive) compared to times when you felt that no matter what you did it wouldn’t make a difference (tired, sad, cranky, negative, maybe even physical pain or illness).
So, we know that how we think of ourselves, such as, a person who is just smacked around by life like a piñata, with no control or input, life happens at you, the victim attitude, will actually make your life feel worse. It will probably also make you feel defeated and less likely to try to make your life better, make positive changes, or reach out to others to help you change your circumstances.
You may or may not tell others so that they can sympathize, but not seek someone who may have a better idea of how to deal with what you’re going through. Because if you believe you have no control, why try?
On the other hand, if you believe that sometimes bad things happen but that you can get back up, make a difference, change, you are empowered by the belief that you have some things you can control. You are your hero; you know you can count on you to keep looking, keep fighting, keep learning, till you succeed in your quest. That is the resilience that fuels people to believe in themselves and keep moving forward with hope. That hero hope is what we need to keep getting up when we get knocked down.
Putting on that role of either victim or hero then is the filter for everything in our life. Our brain requires our actions and thoughts to line up with our beliefs. So if we take the victim role, we will even subconsciously sabotage our actions, in order to keep the results in line with our beliefs about ourselves.
It becomes self-fulfilling. If you believe you are a victim, you will make poorer choices, give up sooner and not have the energy required to get out of whatever you feel is holding you down. You are really trying to fight uphill.
If you believe you are a hero, you will have more energy and drive to get up and keep trying, change plans, be creative, and do what it takes to achieve the hero goal that your brain already believes is possible. You brain will be working to bring about consistency with the success you have already chosen.
Even the way you stand and speak will give away your belief about yourself. This will influence how people treat you and what they believe about you; whether they give up on you or really want to help you on that success train.
Also, we all like to be around positive, energetic people so we draw people to us when we have the hero perspective. We repel them when we are dull, negative and hopeless. Some will try to help but most won’t. And after a while of failure, everyone wants to throw in the towel of expectations.
Choosing whether you are the victim or the hero in your life does not mean that you pretend you have not been through tough events. It also doesn’t mean you won’t have bad days anymore or times when you want to quit. It may mean the difference in whether you believe you have to continue to live life in situations where you get emotionally knocked down with no hope or that you can make changes. That choice drives your whole life and the relationships you will or won’t have. You have that power.
So maybe the first step in your life is to see what role you have cast yourself in, and decide if you need to be recast. You have that power. No matter what others may or may not say, you are the only one who casts the role of your life. (Hint: Pick Hero) 🙂
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