does life happen to you? or do you happen to life?

[abby normal]

does life generally happen to you, or do you generally happen to life? IOW, are you the victim of circumstance? OR have you figured out how to bend life to your will?

 

[SusanLR]

Some things I can bend to my will. Others I cannot change.

 

[Shevek]

I used to make bigger plans and often carried through, but most of the details were still determined by availability. Now, I try to live inside a fairly conventional situation.

 

[JayCee]

life happened, while I was somewhere else Was hoping someone would offer me a Cliff Notes version of the whole thing

 

[Outdated]

IOW, are you the victim of circumstance?

I learned not to be a victim when I was still fairly young, not to people and not to the world itself. Sometimes life dishes up some pretty hard knocks but I roll with the punches and keep going.

Sometimes beaten physically but never mentally.

 

[JayLapointe]

does life generally happen to you, or do you generally happen to life? IOW, are you the victim of circumstance? OR have you figured out how to bend life to your will?

That depends entirely upon the following question, have I had my morning coffee?

Honestly though I don't think it's ever a question of bending life to your will. Better to think of it as a river and learn to float when you're too tired to swim.

I hate the cliche's of it all but the folks in AA with their serenity prayer are onto something. Changes the things you can, don't worry about the things you can't, work to understand and accept the difference between the too.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I call it planning, not reacting. Only way to overcome what I perceived was bad luck. plan around it worked for us,

 

[Misery]

I just hit it with a hammer, is what I do.

Doesnt do anything, but I keep hitting it anyway, out of pure, blazing spite at this point.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I roll with the punches and keep going.

I don't roll with the punches very well, but I'm very stubborn and will keep at something until it is accomplished or until I am facing overwhelming opposition.

This hasn't necessarily improved my life, but it has shaped who I am.

The Serenity Prayer also means a lot to me in determining what I am going to be up to. Though I tend to bang my head against the wall for a long time before I acknowledge it is something I cannot change.

 

[Kitsuna]

I can’t bend life to my will, but I’m learning how to not be a victim of it.

The Serenity Prayer has helped me too.

Spoiler

 

[AprilR]

Often life happens to me. But sometimes i end up trying something i am not hopeful at all, and i actually succeed and it baffles me.

 

[Outdated]

The Serenity Prayer also means a lot to me in determining what I am going to be up to.

I grew up with a sort of similar bit advice from my great grandmother, an old Geordie woman who'd had a hard life and was as tough as old boots.

"If you don't like something, change it. And if you can't change it there's no point whingeing to me about it."

I very much doubt she got that from any alcoholism reform group, she had quite a few things to say about "the evils of that bloody temperance league".

 

[thejuice]

With chronic illness it's a difficult one. You can 'happen to life' but your brain and body will punish you for taking it too far. So you accept that 'life is happening to you' at times and avoid rebelling in frustration when your brain has said "enough".

It's not giving up though, both boom and bust will lead to much worse outcomes than pacing yourself. Chronic illness is like a rebirth, you shed the old skin and learn to live a completely new life.