Once again my husband’s company made a decision to disband his division, so another move would be in store. This time, I was ready to step up and get my dream job. I registered for a job fair, received several plum offers, and ended with exactly the job I wanted in a country where my husband could still work in the local language. I was so excited.
Moving day arrived. It was pouring rain. I was exhausted. I was trying to do the final cleaning as the movers were loading boxes on the truck. It was really starting to feel like everything was going against us and I robbed myself of the excitement I should have been feeling.
Suddenly the movers stopped packing up and were deep in discussion. They decided the move was off and were packing their own supplies as they had just witnessed the police taking my husband away in handcuffs. I managed to convince them the move was happening regardless of whether my husband came or not. Turns out my husband had forgotten to pay at the petrol station that morning, and was returned by the police after less than an hour.
The icing on the cake came when I was driving alone on the highway to our new home in a neighboring country and got pulled over by the police. Somehow they could see at high speed in the rain that the inspection sticker had expired two days before. When they asked for my address and heard that I was on my way to a new country, they made me pay cash on the spot for the fine. They took every last bit of money I had.
When I crossed the border the rain immediately stopped. When I arrived at my new city, the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen appeared over it. You can imagine the story I told myself. I was destined to leave that God forsaken last country and had reached the promised land, never to go back.
At the time I felt that story was really serving me. I blamed every issue I had ever faced previously on that evil country I had just left. I felt like I had arrived in paradise and looked for all the good. But that really was just a story I told myself. One that discounted all the wonderful memories from my previous home. One that had me desperately trying to interpret everything positively in the new country, even when it wasn’t.
The truth is that the world presents neutral things to us, and we choose to interpret them positively or negatively. It’s not the CIRCUMSTANCE that is causing us pain, but rather our thoughts about it. No matter how bad the situation, the only thing that ever causes us emotional pain is our thinking about it. When your new neighbor starts complaining about everything you do, or a complete stranger tells you how you should handle kids, or somebody cuts you off on the road, you can decide not to think those are so horrible. You may decide to interpret them as neutral.
That’s when you start to get some power in your life, when you start to take the CIRCUMSTANCES that are genuinely neutral and interpret them in a way that serves you and the world. When you feel anger, outrage and hate, you are adding anger, outrage and hate to the world.
You get to decide what everything means and how you will use each CIRCUMSTANCE to either serve your life or detract from it. Your CIRCUMSTANCES are neutral. What you think about them determines your entire life.
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