My Life Improved When I Realized Most Things That Happen To Me Aren’t About Me
Internalizing all that happens in life isn’t healthy for me or the people around me.
It’s not you, it’s me.
It’s a line I heard repeatedly on first dates. It always felt like a cop-out. A kinder form of rejection.
But what if that line is true? What if it’s not about me? What if I’m just fine and he’s not ready for someone like me? Or maybe we’re both just fine but not right for each other?
When this ‘it’s not about me’ concept finally rooted itself in my head I shifted to a better way of seeing myself and all that happens in life. Situations I used to think were about me weren’t at all.
That woman who was rude to me at Target? That wasn’t about me. She had a frazzling day at work and stood in the long checkout line only to realize when she reached the register that she’d forgotten to grab a gallon of milk.
Or that time when my boss whirled up to my desk like the Tasmanian devil and talked down to me like I had no idea that Control C copies something and Control V pastes it? That wasn’t about me either. It may feel degrading but that was about him, not me and my intelligence.