I wrote last time about four ways that life can appear to happen.
The first of these is life happening “to you.”
This is the place in which it looks like life is “out there.” Like life is totallly the sum of your circumstances.
This is the space of victimhood. When it looks like life is happening to you, it looks like you have no control. Like you are completely powerless.
Now there are plenty of things that we have no control over. A global pandemic, for example.
But we always have the capacity to choose a response. To choose what we do and who we are in that doing.
So why would we ever think otherwise?
It can be scary to realize we have power. When we choose to see life as happening to us, we are saying that we don’t want control. We get to say “It’s not my fault!” We get to say, “They need to change, not me!”
We then get to sit back, righteously indignant, comfortable with the excuse we have not to do anything.
Victimhood, paradoxically, feels safe. Like staying in a job when you’re not happy. Even though another job might make you happier, it’s risky to move. It’s easier just to blame your boss.
What has happened when you have seen the world happening to you? And what happened when you were able to shift that perspective?