“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”— Marcus Aurelius
“Between the stimulus and your response, you have the power to decide if and how you’re going to react.“— Victor Frankl
You can’t control how external events unfold. You can’t control how other people feel. You can’t control the randomness of life.
But remember, in any situation, you still own your perspective, your attitude, and how you decide to react.
Strong emotions like anger and despair can trigger words or actions you’ll later regret. I want you to know that those feelings don’t last. They’re temporary. I’ve learned that you have the power to prevent them from taking over your mind and dictating your behavior. As a Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl lived under unimaginably difficult circumstances, and he found that
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
When you’re dealing with other people, have the strength to take the high road and walk away. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation—both with yourself and others—but it only takes an instant to destroy it. The Dalai Lama talks about developing ‘mental immunity’ through meditation, similar to how you build your physical immunity through rest, exercise, and diet. It’s a way of making sure you don’t give away your agency to strong temporary emotions.
Maruc Aurelius once said,
“Every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose.”
Focus your energy on what you can actually control. For the things you can’t, use the stuff as fuel to live the life you were meant to live.