Our Reactions During Difficult Times
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.”
Everyone goes through valleys and difficult times. You may be entering a valley now or feel like the current one will never end. Randy Pausch warns us, regardless of the current situation, we as individuals can make it worse.
This could be done by our actions, attitudes, or worse poor reactions. One of the major practices in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we cannot change. This practice is difficult, as life keeps throwing curveballs or during times in the valley, when we are our weakest.
Dr. Prem Jayasi once said you might find it impossible to change things outside yourself, but you must remember that life isn’t about what happens to you, it is more about how you react to it.
I think Jayasi’s statement is in alignment with Stoic philosophy as well as a reminder of what small action we can do, while we are in the valley. We may not be able to change the landscape of what is occurring to us at this time, but we can attempt to make it better by our positive reactions.
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