“You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you’re going to be treated, you are in trouble.” -James Baldwin
There’s one rule to life that I know for certain, and that is: you get what you tolerate. Your life is not shaped by the external, such as the economy or your job, but rather, what you believe you can do and deserve.
As Anthony Moore writes,
“The biggest obstacle in your life isn’t your boss, your job, the economy, other people, or God. It’s yourself.”
Sure, external factors do play a part. We’re going through crazy times right now, and your life may have been flipped upside down. However, in the end, you ultimately get to decide how that affects your life. As Byron Katie writes,
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”
To be clear, I am not beyond any of this. Twenty-twenty was meant to be the year I lived my dreams of traveling the world, and that was cut short early.
However, I’m not remembering this as the year that my dreams were crushed, but rather, as the year I came closer to my family and God. It’s the year I was tested and went to the next level. So absolutely, did this year happen for me, not to me.
You can always make anything into a blessing or a curse. The problem isn’t the event itself, but rather, the emotions and meaning you put around it. As Ryan Holiday has said,
“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
Once you do let go of all the unnecessary pain and suffering created by something beyond your control, you can then focus your energy and thoughts towards creating the circumstances you do want for life. Which is how you tell the world how to treat you, rather than letting it decide for you.