Stop Being a Victim

Today, I was reading an interesting timeline of a friend of mine on Facebook. She likes to read non-fiction and hardly reads fiction these days. Her timeline is full of articles about science, feminism and art. Everything she posts is worth reading and I find the stream of articles she shares thought invoking and challenging.

The article she posted today was not too challenging. I didn't agree with its premis that men are more successful because they are more competitive and that is because they either innately or through life learn to play well in groups. It is an interesting idea but as usual myself and a lot of my female friends are living contradictions. Ask anyone who has worked with me or played boardgames with me or even had a glass of champagne with me on Melbourne Cup Day and you'll hear how insanely competitive I can be. This has been tempered with age but that drive is still alive and well and a healthy part of who I am.

That isn't the point of why I am writing this though.

Along with this post on her timeline came comments from one of our mutual friends. This friend interprets everything she reads as evidence to reinforce her view of the world. In this case, men and women work against people like her who have a competitive spirit and combine to thwart her upward and forward movement in her life.

If this was a one off occasion then it wouldn't bother me too much. This however is not a one time thing. She is the flagship amongst some negative people I know who suffer from a victim mentality.

It is painful to watch and impossible to talk to her about because all she'd see is more people raining on her parade. To be honest, if she read this, she wouldn't even know I meant her. *sigh*

There is a simple formula I have for life...

People who look outward for the cause of all their problems will never fix the real cause which is most often their approach to life. Instead they will blame others.

People who look inward for cause and try to improve who they are or what their choices are (including who they allow in their lives) will become better people. They will do so because they realise that you can't change how others act towards or around you but you can change how you deal with them and their effects.

Luckily, her and I are no longer Facebook friends. I could only stand it for so long. Having been at this point once in my life, I realised that I wasn't so much wrong about who had made my life miserable but blaming him brought me no closure. It didn't allow me to move forward.

I often think of this quote and hope others actually listen and let things people have done to them go. It is the only way to take power away from the person who hurt you and set yourself free.


“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”  --Catherine Ponder