
Feb 19, 2011, 10:14 AM
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Member Since: Jan 2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3,260
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LovebirdsFlying
And thank you for your feedback. Yes, some everyday injustices are deal-with-able, but some aren't, like hitting every red light when you're running late, or your appointment got cancelled at the last minute because of somebody else's mistake. Any time I get messed up, and it's somebody else's fault entirely, I tend to see red. Not helpful.
There are also major events that we have no control over. Right now a family friend is going through a deep personal tragedy. I can't do anything to help, except to show my support. Here, I'll say only that someone who ought to be in jail is not, I don't know why justice isn't being done, but I can't do anything about it and neither can the family friend. Except that we can voice our disapproval with the system--maybe somehow that can bring about change. It's this type of thing, if I let myself stew, I could really flip out over.
Lessons can be learned from the past. I sometimes see myself as an experiment of life. I tend to think I was put on earth for bad things to happen to, so that society will see them happen and think, "That's bad. Let's not let it happen again." Thus changes are made. It's akin to the fact that I was the oldest child, and therefore the one my parents made the most mistakes on, and corrected them on later children. Very often, I find myself the victim of a bad system, and because something happened to me that shouldn't have, a policy is changed, and someone else who comes along after me is spared. The trouble is, then I get to thinking, why do *I* have to be the ground-breaker? Why can't I be the one who comes along later and benefits by what someone else went through? But the truth is, I am. Bad things happen to everybody, not just me. And that's what I have to remind myself.
As for ruminating on the past, I am reminded of the crude American proverb, "The more you stir up (um, waste material), the more it stinks."
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I'm an American and I wasn't aware of that proverb. Sometimes people who hold a grudge about one thing find that the emotions associated with it spill over to other situations. If you felt put upon by your parents, is it possible that your feelings about that spill over to other authority figures? I wonder if you let go of a need to feel in control of everything, if you ultimately wouldn't feel better? I know it seems weird, but when I stopped caring about so much stuff (caring as in how can I control this?), my mood improved, a lot. Some things still bother me and profoundly. But I am not beset every day with bother over a lot of stuff that I cannot change or that does not personally, directly affect me. And that isn't to say that I am not concerned; I am still concerned about hungry children, mistreated people, the state of the earth and all the animals in it. But I have found that prayer works better than stewing, in my approach to those things I hold near to my heart.
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