Life Doesn’t Happen to You, It Happens From You
“Everything, you see, that you throw at me I will transform into a blessing, a boon — something dignified, even enviable.” -Epictetus
In high school, I was cut from the basketball team three years in a row.
Three years of practicing during the off-season.
Three years of running exhausting drills at tryouts.
Three years of excitedly waiting for the team roster to get posted.
Three years of not finding my name on the roster.
It was painful. And the worst part wasn’t the blow to my pride (although that sucked) — it was that I genuinely love basketball. Getting cut meant I wouldn’t get to play my favorite sport.
But life has a funny way of flipping events on their head.
Because I wasn’t tied up in basketball practice every day, I threw myself into other activities — the foremost of which was chess.
I had played chess since third grade and competed in tournaments for years. But now I had time to immerse myself in the game fully, and that immersion paid dividends.
By the time I graduated high school, I had racked up a scholastic state chess championship, two state speed chess championships, and a top-ten finish in the national championships. These nerdy accomplishments helped me visit new states, meet new friends, and secure a full-tuition scholarship in college (it added an interesting element to my resume).
In high school, I would have told you that getting cut from the basketball team was a terrible thing. But when I look back today, I’m not so sure.
“Everything that happens is neutral. Your beliefs label it as good or bad…Nothing is good or bad. You just reacted as if it was. When something bad happens, ask, ‘What’s great about this?’ Instead of changing the world, just change your reactions.” -Derek Sivers
Events are neutral
Over the past few years, I’ve adopted the mentality that events are neutral. Their “goodness” or “badness” isn’t inherent — it’s assigned.
We choose whether to interpret events as positive or negative.
Let me be even more clear…
As controversial as it sounds, getting fired is not an objectively bad thing. Neither is breaking your arm. Or getting dumped. Or getting sick. Or botching a presentation. Or a host of other things people would tell you to lament.
Any event can result in “good” or “bad” in someone’s life. We’re not in charge of the events; we’re only in charge of how we respond.
Events are neutral. Their “goodness” or “badness” isn’t inherent — it’s assigned. We choose whether to interpret events as positive or negative.
Alan Watts puts it well in this popular story about a Chinese farmer:
“What new and good thing is going to come out of even this?” -Rob Bell
Your mentality is a magnet that attracts good or bad
Five things I’ve learned about the world:
- Events are neutral.
- The only thing we can control is how we respond. Nothing else matters.
- Our reaction to those events determines whether their eventual outcome will be “good” or “bad.”
- Because events themselves are neutral, the quality of our lives is determined by our perspective.
- And remarkably, our perspective somewhat pre-determines the future events that will happen in our lives.
The first four bullets are all tenets of Stoic philosophy, so they’ve gotten a lot of air time recently amidst Stoicism’s resurgence.
But the last bullet is arguably the most powerful one: we attract fortunate or unfortunate events into our lives through the perspective we take. Or, in the words of author Erich Heller, “Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.”
Mentality is a magnet.
A positive mindset will attract success.
A negative mindset will attract failure.
Or, to put it another way, life doesn’t happen to you, it happens from you. It emanates from your energy. It’s a function of your frame of mind.
“As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.” -Mahatma Gandhi
If you think a speech will go well, it probably will. If you think you’ll nail a job interview, you probably will. If you think that cute guy or girl at the bar will say yes when you ask them out, your confidence will make them more likely to do so.
But on the flip side, if you think the speech/interview/question will flop, it probably will.
“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.” -Anaïs Nin
Your outcome follows your eyes
Years ago, I heard an interesting anecdote about kayaking that has stuck with me. While navigating white water rapids, kayakers are supposedly more likely to wipe out if they focus on the rocks (what they don’t want to paddle through) than if they focus on the rapids (what they do want to paddle through).
Your perspective predicts your path.
Your focus forecasts your future.
I don’t kayak, so I don’t have any idea whether that’s accurate, but it feels true because I’ve noticed the same thing when I drive my car. If I gawk at a crash or mountain or sunset out the left side of my vehicle, I drift left.
Taking your eyes off your desired path makes it less likely you’ll reach your destination. But the inverse is also true: maintaining focus on your target increases the likelihood you’ll reach it.
“Your story about who you are and how you see yourself is generally a direct correlation to how you perform in the world.” -Benjamin Hardy, PhD
Your outcome follows your eyes.
Your perspective predicts your path.
Your focus forecasts your future.
And as with any forecast, it’s not perfectly accurate. Sometimes the meteorologist on Channel 6 says it won’t rain, but then you get soaked when you leave the house without an umbrella.
Similarly, sometimes you’ll approach a situation with a productive mindset and it doesn’t pan out. Or a destructive mindset and it will.
That’s how forecasts work. Forecasts are probabilistic — not predictive. These things aren’t a perfect science. But what you choose to focus on (positive or negative, good or bad, confidence or doubt, etc.) plays a huge role in what happens to you.
“Our life is dyed by the color of our thoughts.” -Marcus Aurelius
The next part is up to you
Tomorrow you will face setbacks, failures, people who don’t like you, things that piss you off, and a host of other challenges.
But you have a choice: how will you respond to those difficulties?
Will you lament them or learn from them?
Focus on the difficulty or use it as fuel?
Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens from you. It emanates from your energy.
So the next time something “horrible” happens to you, wait a beat. Try to view that event through the eyes of yourself ten years from now, viewing two alternate realities of how that event transformed your life:
- Possible Reality #1 — That difficult event wrecked you and sent you down a terrible path.
- Possible Reality #2— That difficult event made you stronger and led to new opportunities you never would have found otherwise.
Which reality will come true? The choice is yours.
“Remind yourself that the only thing you can truly control is you — and your reaction to what the world throws at you.” -Patrick M. Regan
Want to become a stronger leader?
Sign up to get my exclusive
10-page guide for leaders and learners.
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.
