It’s YOU Who’s to Blame for All of Your Problems

You think problems are bestowed upon you, but they aren’t.

It’s not other people, the weather or your luck that need to change.

It’s you.

When you blame the world for all your problems, you’re stuck running on life’s treadmill — expecting to get somewhere.

But when you start accepting fault — even when it feels like someone else’s — you’re stepping off that treadmill.

You’re ready to actually move through the world, live a happier life and improve.

Stay asleep to the root cause of your problems — yourself — and you’ll be stuck on that treadmill forever.

The eye of the beholder

“We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.”

— Anthony De Mello

To understand how you are the problem, you need to understand how we experience and perceive things in life.

Things don’t happen to us — things happen THROUGH us.

Meet David.

• His political stance is firmly right-wing.
• He loves sports and eating meat
• He loves his huge guard dogs
• He’s handsome and very confident.

Now if you introduce David to Edward, he’ll love the guy.

Because Edward shares all the same interests, the same political views and he can relate to his confidence.

But if you introduce David to someone on the opposite end of the spectrum — Kerry — who doesn’t eat meat, firmly left-wing, hates sports and thinks David is cocky — he won’t fancy him one bit.

Now here’s the interesting part.

David hasn’t changed at all — David remains objectively the same.

And if you think back to how we described each person, they like David because of their interests, and because of their personalities — not his.

It’s not about David — it never was and never will be.

This is we say: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

A person is attractive to some, but unattractive to others.

If you look at a vase through smudged glasses, you’ll see a blurry vase —but the vase is not blurry. It’s the medium that you’re peering through that is blurry.

Your problems aren’t real in the third dimension — they exist only in your mind

We observe two basketball players — Michael and Jordan.

Michael is new to basketball; Jordan is pretty experienced.

Jordan had a game last night.

He shot 8 times and made every single one, but he turned the ball over 10 times and played terrible defence. His team lost the game, and he knows he was a major reason why.

It bothers him — he wishes he could just replay the game.

He loops the game in his head, thinking about all the things he would’ve done differently.

His mood is blue, he ruins the night with his girlfriend and even has a bad sleep.

Michael also had a game last night.

And coincidentally, he had the exact same game as Jordan.

He went 8/8, turned the ball over 10 times and played terrible defence.

But the difference is, Michael thinks he had a great game.

All Michael knows at this point in his basketball journey is that making a shot = good.

He goes home with a big smile on his face, he tells his girlfriend, and they have a great night together.

He sleeps like a baby and dreams going to the NBA.

All this is to say that the ‘eye of the beholder’ concept illustrates very clearly that our problems don’t exist in the third dimension (reality).

Our problems exist within us.

They feel factual, they feel real — but they’re not.

They’re simply an interpretation of events.

The truth is it’s you who’s creating a world full of problems.

Because you experience the world through yourself.

You are the medium, the conduit, the carrier, of all these problems.

This is good news — wonderful news!

It means that you have the power to lessen these problems — maybe not get rid of them entirely — but lessen them.

You have the ability to make your life happier, more productive and less problematic by simply changing the lens through which you view the world — by wiping the oily smudges off of your glasses.

Change your lenses to change your life

“You keep insisting ‘I feel good because the world is right.’ Wrong! The world is right because I feel good.”

— Anthony de Mello

Imagine you wore dark lenses your whole life, and then you replaced them with nice clear ones — everything would appear brighter.

That’s what you’re about to do.

You’re about to change your lenses and see the world completely differently.

You’re going to change your mindset from: These problems exist — to — These feel like problems because of the way I’m interpreting them.

You’re no longer going to accuse others of having put problems into your life.

It is you, and only you, who can create problems in your life.

Others can objectively do things, but whether or not that affects you is totally your call.

De Mello says:

“It’s something like this: You leave a book on the table and I pick it up and say, ‘You’re pressing this book on me. I have to pick it up or not pick it up.’

People are so busy accusing everyone else, blaming everyone else, blaming life, blaming society, blaming their neighbour. You’ll never change that way; you’ll continue in your nightmare, you’ll never wake up.”

 — ‘Awareness’ (p89)

From now on, you’re in control.

You’re the one who decides whether or not you’ll let something get to you.

You will:

1. notice the negative thought/feeling
2. not identify with it — keep it separate
3. remember that the negativity is in you, not in reality
4. change yourself to change your reality

When a driver cuts you off, and you become angry — it’s your fault.

You have to understand that they didn’t cut you off — they simply changed lanes.

They have objectively done something in their reality — they might not have even see you.

And now it’s up to you how you react to that objective act.

You can:

1. See it as them cutting you off — take it as a personal attack
2. Choose to be positive and see the act for what it is — just them changing lanes (even if this isn’t true, it’s a much better way to see the world)

And like the exhale of your breath, the problem blows away and joins the rest of the matter that makes up our universe — and you continue on your day nice and calmly.

Maybe if you’d become agitated, you would’ve increased the likelihood for a serioud accident.

So, it’s your choice.

Will you create a life full of problems and worries, or will you realise that the problems are not in the world, but in how you view the world?

Will you keep your shades on, or change into a crystal-clear set of glasses?

Thank you for reading.

I’m just sharing the lessons learned on my path to building my Mental Fortress - an impenetrable and stable mind.

If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise my own ideas.

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Sincerely,

Eren