My Self -- A Victim?

People say things about me, and do things that affect me.  Probably the same can be said of you.  People say things about you, and people do things that affect you.

Some of what is said and done impacts you, or describes you negatively.

Welcome to the "real world", or the world-as-it-is.  What so many people don't "get" is this:  they are generally not victims.  NOT VICTIMS!!

But oh-so-many-people mentally describe themselves as victims.  Even folks who appear outwardly to be fine, healthy, OK people think of themselves as victims.  When a person believes she/he is a victim, it's easy to describe people as toxic, as hateful, as persecutors.  The driver who won't let me into traffic is "a nasty SOB".  The manager who requires you to work in the way you signed on to work is a bully.  The co-worker who doesn't work up to your standard is victimizing you, making you do more work than you should have to.  And the list goes on and on and on.

I suspect there are a few victims in the world.  People displaced by floods and war, Syrian villagers being gassed by their own government, Jewish people in the 1930's and 1940's who were destroyed by Hitler's goons might qualify.  Viktor Frankl, however, learned in the extermination camps that what person decided within herself or himself changed everything.  "I'm not a victim -- I'm planning to write a symphony."

I"m not a victim, I have a book or two I want to read."

"I'm going to die, but I will die a fully human person, and live until I die.  I am not a victim.  I'm a human."

These folks mostly died in the gas chambers, but the few who survived to be liberated by the Allies often went on to bring Nazi criminals to justice, to write books, and symphonies and do useful things.  They decided somehow, they were not victims.

Some events and people in the world might cut you off from something or someone you want, but only you can define yourself as a victim -- whiney, powerless, labeling others, a sad excuse for a human being.  Your ARE MORE.  Believe, and behave like it.

What do you think?  Are you a victim?  Share your comments and let us know.