Dr Benjamin Hardy suggests rewriting - xyz happened TO me - to instead - xyz happened FOR me, allowing you to look at what you learned from it. To look at the Gain (how far you've come) instead of the GAP (being disappointed your not at your ideal)
All his books come from looking at life from the perspective of your future self instead of from your past.
As you say in your article, your future self is always different to your past self. People forget that they will be a different person in the future to who they are now.
This article, which I agree with from within my own knowing and experience, appeared immediately following a long and very difficult conversation with my closest friend. So much of our conversation could have been alleviated had I been able to share this before we spoke! My gratitude for your posting this deep truth is beyond words. Thank you is all I can say.
It can be so hard to help someone who insists on a victim mentality or worse still, who thinks any kind of reframing is tantamount to allowing oneself to be gaslit. Been there. Many more times than once. I hope things work out for your friend. Hang in there.
I hear you. I would add that the main problem with that statement is that it stops there. It’s an important insight, but one that needs more time and attention for figuring out where to go from there.
Of course "They/Them/Tired" feel validated by this art because the "system" is "designed" by-and-for precisely their sense of privileged fragility. What fool would believe that there is nothing wrong with them, and that therefore any affront to their personhood is the fault of "the system"? Clearly many people. This is just one more drop of propaganda in the totalitarian ocean to prepare otherwise self-respecting individuals to conform with the socialized administrative nanny state that promises all things and infantilizes everyone in the process.
It's a similar misleading-logic as that once popular brand "life is good" – obviously life is not always good. But if you were to convince yourself that it was, and when it wasn't going so well, then clearly it's someone else's fault – the system is to blame for life not going good right now! HAHA! I would't be caught dead wearing one of those shirts.
You’re exactly right. I never even thought to relate this attitude to faith in a socialized administrative state, but that’s exactly right. I wonder what happens then when they get that state, and those same people still aren’t happy? Oh boy!
It’s incredible that grown men can spend their entire adult lives with the outlook of a young teenager. It really is extraordinary and sad.
In my day and my locale, we were raised to take responsibility for our actions. We did the crime- we did the time.
No one owes you a living. “It’s a poor adult who cannot look after themselves,” was a precept drilled into us from the time we were children. .
I had responsibilities that couldn’t be shirked without an animal suffering. There is something fundamental in being taught by your elders, parents, friends parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles that the outside World was not actually made for your gratification.
Maybe because the young ones today no longer have to be outside,- “doing chores” at minus 65 degrees or plus 45 degrees C just to keep your stock fed and alive, they have not discovered how strong they are. To make steel you need fire.
Those that have endured the elements and those that still do, they know the effort real life requires. Nature provides the adversity, your inner self must provide the strength. Much is learnt not so much by the falling down, as but by the getting back up.
Is this why the Nordic countries-Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway- have been ranked the happiest in the world a number of years running?
Dr Benjamin Hardy suggests rewriting - xyz happened TO me - to instead - xyz happened FOR me, allowing you to look at what you learned from it. To look at the Gain (how far you've come) instead of the GAP (being disappointed your not at your ideal)
All his books come from looking at life from the perspective of your future self instead of from your past.
As you say in your article, your future self is always different to your past self. People forget that they will be a different person in the future to who they are now.
This article, which I agree with from within my own knowing and experience, appeared immediately following a long and very difficult conversation with my closest friend. So much of our conversation could have been alleviated had I been able to share this before we spoke! My gratitude for your posting this deep truth is beyond words. Thank you is all I can say.
It can be so hard to help someone who insists on a victim mentality or worse still, who thinks any kind of reframing is tantamount to allowing oneself to be gaslit. Been there. Many more times than once. I hope things work out for your friend. Hang in there.
Yes! And Roy Masters meditation exercise will help so much to seperate from insanity in the mind.
I hear you. I would add that the main problem with that statement is that it stops there. It’s an important insight, but one that needs more time and attention for figuring out where to go from there.
Of course "They/Them/Tired" feel validated by this art because the "system" is "designed" by-and-for precisely their sense of privileged fragility. What fool would believe that there is nothing wrong with them, and that therefore any affront to their personhood is the fault of "the system"? Clearly many people. This is just one more drop of propaganda in the totalitarian ocean to prepare otherwise self-respecting individuals to conform with the socialized administrative nanny state that promises all things and infantilizes everyone in the process.
It's a similar misleading-logic as that once popular brand "life is good" – obviously life is not always good. But if you were to convince yourself that it was, and when it wasn't going so well, then clearly it's someone else's fault – the system is to blame for life not going good right now! HAHA! I would't be caught dead wearing one of those shirts.
You’re exactly right. I never even thought to relate this attitude to faith in a socialized administrative state, but that’s exactly right. I wonder what happens then when they get that state, and those same people still aren’t happy? Oh boy!
It’s incredible that grown men can spend their entire adult lives with the outlook of a young teenager. It really is extraordinary and sad.
Like your post.
In my day and my locale, we were raised to take responsibility for our actions. We did the crime- we did the time.
No one owes you a living. “It’s a poor adult who cannot look after themselves,” was a precept drilled into us from the time we were children. .
I had responsibilities that couldn’t be shirked without an animal suffering. There is something fundamental in being taught by your elders, parents, friends parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles that the outside World was not actually made for your gratification.
Maybe because the young ones today no longer have to be outside,- “doing chores” at minus 65 degrees or plus 45 degrees C just to keep your stock fed and alive, they have not discovered how strong they are. To make steel you need fire.
Those that have endured the elements and those that still do, they know the effort real life requires. Nature provides the adversity, your inner self must provide the strength. Much is learnt not so much by the falling down, as but by the getting back up.
Is this why the Nordic countries-Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway- have been ranked the happiest in the world a number of years running?