Sans Fig Leaf
"Why me?"
12 January, 2001
I've known many people who seem to be trouble magnets. Every time I talk to them, some new tragedy has befallen them. They've lost their job, again. They had a big fight with their significant other, again. Someone who doesn't like them is making things difficult for them, again.
"It's truly amazing how much bad luck I have," one once said to me. "Why do these things always happen to me?"
I gently asked him if, maybe, there was some pattern to these disasters? Were there early warning signs that might have allowed them to avoid the problem? Was there something they could have done to avert catastrophe?
"What? Are you saying it's my fault?" He asked, incredulous. "You're blaming me?!"
Bad luck happens to everyone. But sometimes I have to wonder when I see precisely the same kind of bad thing keep happening to the same person. Just as I wondered when I went through a period of time where I kept meeting guys who seemed interested in a relationship, but each one would vanish after just one date or meeting.
I came to the conclusion that I was contributing to the problem. I was the one putting myself in the situation. I was deciding who to ask. Or I was deciding to say "yes" if they were the ones to ask. I had to figure out what part of the process I could change. Change wouldn't guarantee better results, but doing the same things the same way would probably continue to produce the bad results.
I didn't completely fix the problem on the first try. But things did change when I changed my approach. Unfortunately, we can't always fix every problem.
I read in the paper this week of a murder-suicide in our area. A woman who had divorced her abusive husband years ago has been killed by him. And then he killed himself. It seems she did everything she could to remove herself and her children from a bad situation, but in the end, it wasn't enough.
The unpleasant truth of the universe is that we can't control everything that happens to us. There will always be forces and circumstances beyond our control.
What we do have control over is our response to these happenings. We can become all fatalistic and just accept what happens with a grim determination, or we express regret about the bad things and try to make the best of the new situation. We can complain bitterly about our fate, or we can consider the change a new opportunity.
Tragedy and triumph are simply labels that we choose to attach to events. They aren't physical properties of the universe.
It is up to each of us to decide.
--Confucius