I have been on a quest for happiness for some time, and because of this I got used to analyze my state of mind every now and then. I realized that I have all the reasons to be happy: I am happily married, I have a good, stable job, I do not have money issues and the list can go on. There is no real external motive that could cause my unhappiness. And during a self-reflection moment, I realized that I cannot really relax. Of course, I am not talking about relaxing for a few hours or having a few happy moments because that I can do. But I am not able to completely relax, to stop worrying about little things, and just blend in with the flow of life. Why do I want that? Because when you are able to completely let go of the struggle against life, that’s when you really start to live. All the fighting against what is and all the attempts to control life are pointless and they only consume our energy. We will never be able to fully control our environment and other people and this is the main source of unhappiness; so I am asking myself, why can’t I let go and just be completely happy?
And then I realized I like the struggle, I like being unhappy and I like being a victim. Why? I choose it because it makes me feel special. There is pride in being a martyr. And the funny thing is that each of us is having a struggle and we all think of ourselves as being special. And we see our own strive but we do not see it in other people, and that’s where the human drama begins. In other words, we all think we are unique, that no other person has endured like we did. That is true, we are unique, but so are the other people, unique in their own way.
We turn into victims each time somebody hurts us. And we do not even take a moment to think that maybe he did not do it on purpose; most of the times it‘s just somebody’s existence crossing over ours. And when we want to get even, we think we are in self-defense. After all, we are the victims here.
Other times, acting as a victim makes me hope that the others will not hurt me or they will take better care of me. But this is an illusion, the world does not revolve around me and people are not here to serve or take care of me.
Also, if I am a victim I can blame the others for my failures. If I acknowledge the fact that I am responsible for my existence, I cannot blame my parents, my brothers, my spouse, my boss or my colleagues. It means that I am the only one responsible for my life and for my failures. And that’s a tough one to take.
And there is something else that I do and that prevents my happiness. I tend to discard good things in my life that were easy to obtain or they just happened without any struggle at all. We were thought as children that we need to work hard to achieve something important. Even our society values more those who have succeeded in achieving a goal after a struggle than those who have achieved it easily. I always regarded with a bit of contempt those who had everything, those who did not have to work for the things they wanted.
And since we are thought that nothing good comes easy, each time something good comes my way I wonder: have I done enough to deserve this? If I decide that it was too easy, I try to do something in order to compensate for the good that is going to happen to me. So I act unhappy in order to keep “the equality in the universe”.
All these beliefs, the victimization and the attempt to keep “the equality in the universe” stop me from living to my full potential.
1. Feeling like a victim is an obstacle into achieving my goals. The constant worrying and thinking that the obstacles in life that do not depend on me, the feeling that I cannot change my fate makes me think like a small person: always whining and complaining about how harsh life has been on me instead of going out there and breaking the barriers.
2. My desire to be a victim prevents me to be happy and fully enjoy life. The constant worry brings useless struggle and unhappiness. There is no “equality in the universe”, things happen as they do and unhappiness is not paid with happiness.
3. The toughest path to an achievement is not always the best one. Because of the belief in the good / bad balance in my life, I may sometimes choose a harder path to achieve a goal instead of the easier one. Other times I might not take an opportunity thinking it is too good to be true. In other words, “I do not deserve it because I did not work enough for it”.
And even though I read and I wrote articles about the comforts of being a victim, it only occurred to me a few days ago that I’m doing exactly the same thing.
How about you? Do you have beliefs that prevent you from living life to the fullest?
For further reading on this subject I recommend you:
http://www.elenanicolae.com/the-drama-triangle-and-the-old-giving-and-giving-and-giving/
http://www.alisanagnostakis.com/the-comforts-of-being-a-victim/