I had an uxexpected email exchange the other day with someone who attended the same elementary school I did.
Apparently, I was not the superstar I thought I was back then because she didn’t remember me. This did seem a bit odd because looking back at those old school photos, it seems pretty clear I was hot stuff.
Toothless smiles, bad hair days years, turtle necks that made me look like the sun with a head and a grade 6 revelation that I may have actually had breasts were not enough to leave any kind of impression, let alone a lasting one.
[Big shout out to LS who pointed out my "breasts" and scarred me for life.]
This person is now living in the United States. Having had the misfortune of going through 2 divorces, she wondered if her love life might have turned out differently if she had stayed in Canada. Was it possible Mr. Right was Canadian eh?
When times are tough, when things go sour, when the glass is half empty, when nothing seems to go right, it is easy to blame something other than ourselves for our predicament.
It is certainly more convenient to blame the country, the government, our upbringing, our employer, our spouse, our friends, our lack of money, our bad luck, our never getting a break or society on why we are where we are.
But the truth is, we are exactly where we have placed ourselves.
If there is an area of our life we are not happy with, then we are to blame because whatever the current situation may be, it is because of who we are at this very moment in our lives.
We attract what we are and what we believe.
If we think there is never enough money, we put ourselves in jobs and opportunities where there never is enough.
If we don’t feel we are worthy of a great relationship, then we attract people who will step in and mistreat us.
If we think we have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the world, then we surround ourselves with people who will gladly and regularly remind us of this.
And the opposite works as well.
If we believe people are good, we see that goodness radiate in all we meet. If we think money is plentiful, then opportunities abound. And if we think we have ideas worth sharing, we take the steps to get them out there.
When we come to the realization that our life has turned out exactly as we have designed it (even if it was a subconscious design) then, and only then, are we empowered to start creating the life we really want.
So quit thinking you aren’t to blame for those things in your life that aren’t exactly as you would like them to be. You are precisely where you have placed yourself.
If your life is like a gigantic mall, then it’s just a matter of placing your “You are here” icon in the area of the mall you really want to be and making the necessary changes to get there.
To an idea worth quitting,
Dean
