James Lee Stanley

I had quite a heated argument with a dear friend of mine a while back.   She was angry and felt, justifiably, that she had been treated badly.   As I listened to her as she unloaded her burden, I realized that there was a universal theme showing up in every situation she described.     

We are in the only place we could be given who we are.

And I realized that we are right where we are in life because of who we are, as individuals, as groups, as cities, states, country and world.

In every social equation in your life there is only one consistent, common component and that is you.   No matter what has gone down in your life; no matter what situation you are in; no matter how different all these situations are, there is only one common component.  You.

If you do the math, that means that ultimately, you are responsible for who you are; where you are; what you are.  You take up the most space in your life equations so you have the most influence and responsibility.

You can rant and rave about anything you want, but the reality is that there is only one thing that you can change.  You.   You can’t change one other person.

You can change the way you handle things; the way you react; the way you forgive (a huge one), and you don’t do it by making grand announcements or vast lists of resolutions.

The next time that you react to something in a way that doesn’t serve you, at the moment you recognize what you’ve done, whether it is seconds, minutes, hours or days later, acknowledge it and stop going that way.    Apologize if need be, make amends as they say in twelve step programs, but after you‘ve done that once and realize that it doesn’t hurt too much, and you can catch it again and you will catch it a little bit sooner with practice.

Once you are aware of what you are doing to harm yourself and you recognize and acknowledge it, you will find that it is a tiny bit easier and a tiny bit sooner to recognize and acknowledge.    Then you rectify it and soon you are noticing the problem inside of you before you even say outloud the thing that you previously had to apologize for.

I’m not kidding, you can change what isn’t working for you, but you can’t do it in huge chunks.  It’s day to day, minute to minute.  

But it can be done, and you can do it.   Take charge of your life one second at a time.    The years will take care of themselves.