A wiser person than me once said...
Aug. 25th, 2002 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyI used to have a friend called Debby, who was someone far wiser then me. I think it's a great shame I lost touch with her, as she was significantly more grounded and sensible (but still fantastic to go to parties with) than I was, certainly at the time.
One day I was talking to her, bitching about something or other (probably female, it usually was back then), and I came out with the standard refrain of the incessant whinger: "Why does this always happen to me!?"
She looked at me for a long moment, and replied "If the same thing keeps happening to you, or if there's a pattern in your life, the only thing that remains constant is you."
I'd regard that as a life changing moment for me; that realisation that when similar situations kept cropping up in my life, the only consistent feature of those situations was *me*. All the other things - people, context, etc, changed. I was what was creating the patterns, nothing else.
This is why it now winds me up to hear people uttering that self-same refrain of "Why does this keep happening to me?". You hear it a lot - the number of people blaming the continuous crap that befalls them on anything but themselves.
So, the David public advice service would like to share with you all the advise that a wise and intelligent woman once shared with me: If there is a pattern of failure, or unhappiness, or making enemies, or whatever else you may not happen to dislike in your life, the first place you should look for cause is inside, not out - as that is where you are most likely to find the culprit for creating this pattern.
Everyone has crap happen to them. What doesn't happen is that people have the same things *repeatedly* happen to them - unless they themselves create the circumstances under which that crap will happen.
Have a nice day, all, and recognise yourself as the person who creates the situation of your life, not other people. Take control, and when next time "it" happens to you again, just change it - because you, and only you, can.
One day I was talking to her, bitching about something or other (probably female, it usually was back then), and I came out with the standard refrain of the incessant whinger: "Why does this always happen to me!?"
She looked at me for a long moment, and replied "If the same thing keeps happening to you, or if there's a pattern in your life, the only thing that remains constant is you."
I'd regard that as a life changing moment for me; that realisation that when similar situations kept cropping up in my life, the only consistent feature of those situations was *me*. All the other things - people, context, etc, changed. I was what was creating the patterns, nothing else.
This is why it now winds me up to hear people uttering that self-same refrain of "Why does this keep happening to me?". You hear it a lot - the number of people blaming the continuous crap that befalls them on anything but themselves.
So, the David public advice service would like to share with you all the advise that a wise and intelligent woman once shared with me: If there is a pattern of failure, or unhappiness, or making enemies, or whatever else you may not happen to dislike in your life, the first place you should look for cause is inside, not out - as that is where you are most likely to find the culprit for creating this pattern.
Everyone has crap happen to them. What doesn't happen is that people have the same things *repeatedly* happen to them - unless they themselves create the circumstances under which that crap will happen.
Have a nice day, all, and recognise yourself as the person who creates the situation of your life, not other people. Take control, and when next time "it" happens to you again, just change it - because you, and only you, can.
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Life is like that
I know the feeling thats what happens to myself at times, you must have been really bad in a past life. Just smile and ingore it, thats what l do. Then again look at me
Derek
no subject
Date: 2002-08-25 11:07 am (UTC)so very true
but a question - how in this case do you change the constant??
when some one else is 'responsible (/ read blameable for) it is 'easy' to change what is going on........
but if it is you.... how do you change that
oh and I am talking generalistically...
PS - if you can cme up with a reason i can live with then I will keep you constantly drunk for 365 days ( or a year as it is more commonly known...)
Re:
Date: 2002-08-25 11:37 am (UTC)Example: "Oh, woe is me, for my girlfriends always shag about behind my back."
Reason: My learned pattern was to target women who were already attached, unavailability being an attractive feature for me.
Result: I'd end up with women who were prepared to be unfaithful to their boyfriends.
Change made: Stop chasing attached women, as i) nicking my mates girlfriends didn'tmake me any friends, and ii) it meant I ended up with women who were already demonstrably willing to be unfaithful.
Final result: Girlfriends stopped seeing other people behind my back, although I *do* kinda miss the chase of hunting down attached women for a laugh.
Changing your own reactions/self is not as hard as many people seem to make out. You already have the tools at your disposal and the information you need to change yourself if you really want to.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-25 11:28 am (UTC)I prod people to go read the locus of self control stuff, look for patterns in their own lives. About all you can do, really. Everything else has to come from themselves.
Kudos to the Debby I don't know. Wise words, well spoken.
Or as I think is written on a temple in Greece somewhere (the name escapes me):
Know Thyself
Period.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-25 11:41 am (UTC)Or, as Mark Twain once said...
"If it's you versus the world, then I'm betting on the world."
no subject
Date: 2002-08-26 09:29 am (UTC)