The obvious: Shit happens. A friend betrays you. You don’t get the promotion. There’s a diagnosis. Someone dies. You lose a bet. Your neighbor inexplicably begins mowing six inches into your property line.
Unfair and unlucky things will happen to you. Sometimes you will need help, and that’s perfectly okay. Leaning on others in trying times is part of being human. But let victimhood be a temporary state.
Self-victimization is sneaky. It can feel uber righteous and productive. It eats energy. It breeds attention-seeking behavior, degenerative thought patterns, and learned helplessness. It can blind you to your capabilities, privileges, and opportunities.
Be wary of people who constantly complain, blame, attack, lament, or gossip to generate drama in an otherwise mundane life. These are chronic victims seeking attention by inflating their disappointments, blaming poor outcomes on others and external factors. Chronic victims feed on pity and use guilt to manipulate others. Entertaining their theatrics and mentality only reinforces the cycle. Harms them, wastes your time. It’s seldom worth indulging.
Our minds, as an old saying goes, are excellent servants but terrible masters. This is so true in our perpetual fight against self-pity. As Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.” Much of our suffering exists only in the stories we tell (and keep retelling) ourselves.
You can be tender toward those who are suffering. Acknowledge pain. Ask for help when you need it. Process and heal at your own pace. Just don’t allow temporary misfortune to crystallize into your identity and fuel self-sabotage.
Remember:
- The world is never against you. It’s simply not that organized, nor is there the incentive.
- There is no ‘them.’ No faceless entity conspiring to keep you from a happy life.
- The most interesting, productive, and admirable people in your life likely don’t position themselves as perpetual victims.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book)
“We are often more afflicted in thought than in fact.”
~Seneca, Letter on Ethics (Book)
