You Can Always Control How You Respond to Things You Can’t Control

Over this weekend, the same topic of conversation just so happened to come up multiple times, and so I asked about 10–15 people this question.

Do you believe you have the ability to control the way you react to anything that happens to you in life?

Most of the people responded that though it may be difficult, they absolutely do have control over their response to anything that happens to them.

On a side note, you can also always choose the people you spend your time with. The fact that most people responded to me the way they did tells me that to some extent, I’ve been choosing my friends well. Do the same!

There were however a few people who just couldn’t understand the concept!

“What does that even mean?” one person asked me. “You’re telling me that if something really sad happens, I could be happy??”

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.

There is an old parable about a kid who was so discouraged by his experiences in school, so he went home and told his grandpa he wanted to quit.

His grandpa filled three pots with water and placed each on a high flame. Soon, all three pots came to a boil. In the first pot, he placed carrots. In the second pot, he placed eggs. In the third pot, he placed ground coffee beans. Then he let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

About twenty minutes later, he turned off the burners, and he scooped up the carrots and the eggs, placed them each in a bowl, and ladled the coffee out into a cup. Turning to the boy, he said, “Tell me, what do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” the boy replied.

Then he told the boy “feel the carrots”, which he did and noted that they were soft and mushy.

Grandpa then asked him to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, the boy noted the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, grandpa asked the boy to sip the coffee. The boy smiled as he tasted the coffee with its rich aroma, then he said, “I don’t understand, what does all this mean?”

His grandpa smiled and explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity, a pot of boiling water, but each had reacted differently.

“Which are you?” his grandpa asked.

“When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?

Are you a carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, becomes soft and loses strength?

Are you the egg that appears not to change but whose heart is hardened?

Or are you the coffee bean that changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases its fragrance and flavor!

If you are like the coffee bean, then when things are at their worst, your attitude will change your environment for the better, making it sweet and palatable.”

The moral of the parable is simple: it’s not what happens to you that matters. What matters is how you interpret and react to what happens to you.

We all have experiences in life, and these experiences are neutral; They have no meaning. It’s how we interpret the experiences that gives them meaning.

The way you interpret your experiences will shape your beliefs and theories about the world which, in turn, will influence the way you live your life.

The grandfather’s lesson is that when you can’t change your circumstances, you change yourself.

One of the greatest examples is a man that’s well known for choosing his responses to a life full of crappy situations is Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty. At 9 years old, his mother died. He failed in 2 different business ventures, the second one leaving him with a debt that took him years to pay off. In his mid-20’s, his fiance died, and he supposedly suffered a mental breakdown. Only a few years later, his then-wife was found to be mentally ill. Through all this and for another 30 or so years, he lost 8 elections before finally being elected president of the United States in 1860.

Abraham Lincoln did not choose his experiences of failure and defeat, but he did choose how to respond to them, and you can do the same.

You can’t always change your circumstances, but you can always change the way you respond to them.

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