The environment around us may sometimes foster challenges that make it difficult to cultivate love, peace, and joy. While we retain control over our own happiness, navigating through circumstances involving unkind or insensitive individuals, undesirable situations, or groups that undermine us can present significant obstacles to maintaining contentment. Even though we entered Earth School aware of life’s hardships, this understanding doesn’t diminish the strain of facing these difficulties.
It’s important not to rely on others to change or expect life to conform to our desires. Instead, our efforts to foster love, peace, and joy should focus solely on our own words, thoughts, and actions. Any anticipation of happiness prefaced with “I will be happy when…” followed by external factors sets us up for ongoing frustration and discontent. Instead, we should frame our aspirations with “I will be happy when…” followed by what actions we can take to transform ourselves or our circumstances.
We must not justify expecting others to meet our expectations by feeling are being victimized. True victimhood only arises when we relinquish our responsibility for our own well-being. Victimhood becomes a self-imposed state when individuals fail to take action to alleviate their sense of victimization and instead perceive themselves as oppressed by others. To be a victim, one must neglect their capacity to control their destiny, irrespective of the behavior of others.
