your attitudes affects the outcome

"If you would just give up demanding that your life MUST BE different from the way it currently is, then you'd solve 80% of your problems in an instant!"

Jim Byrne

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is based on the assumption that what we label our “emotional” reactions are largely caused by our conscious and unconscious evaluations, interpretations, and philosophies. Thus, we feel anxious or depressed because we strongly convince ourselves that it is terrible when we fail at something or that we can’t stand the pain of being rejected. We feel hostile because we vigorously believe that people who behave unfairly to us absolutely should not act the way they indubitably do, and that it is utterly insufferable when they frustrate us.

Epictetus (55-125), a greek philospher who spent his youth as a slave, can sum up the flavour of REBT, as follows: "People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them." In other words we are not upset by what happens to us. We get upset because of the attitude that we adopt towards the things that happen to us".

The vast majority of us want to be happy! We want to get along with others—especially with one or two close friends; we want to be well informed and educated; we want a good job with good pay; and we want to enjoy our leisure time.
Of course life doesn't always allow us to have what we want; our goal of being happy is often thwarted by the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." When our goals are blocked, we can respond in ways that are healthy and helpful, or we can react in ways that are unhealthy and unhelpful.

So maybe we should stop blaming externals for our reactions. We have a choice to whatever comes in our way, we can chose to react in a positive or negative way. Sometimes we do not even know what it is that makes us react in certain ways. But if we wish to grow and mature as persons we must take an inside look and find out what attitudes and beliefs that we hold that affects our reactions to external obstacles just as much as the obstacle itself.

To find out about our attitudes and examine them are not an easy process. I would suggest beginning by reading: "The Lies We Believe" by Chris Thurman, where he goes through some typcal attitudes and beliefs (e.g. perfectionism, destructiveness) people have about themselves or others that can affect their emotional life and slef-esteem.

"The uneducated man blames others;

The partly-educated man blames himself;

The educated man blames no one."

Epictetus