When we are no longer able to change a situation—we are challenged to change ourselves.
-Viktor Frankl
In the wake of a loss, we may pray that someone we know has the ability to raise the dead. Unfortunately, no one does and death remains an unchangeable situation.
Frankl, who spent time in Auschwitz, knows much of the desire to change the circumstances in which one lives…and he knows even more that circumstances, sometimes the worst imaginable, are entirely out of our control.
When we cannot change the situation, we are left with two options: change the way we deal with the situation or wallow in the unchangeableness around us. The latter option (wallowing) deprives us of a say in our life and leaves us open to sliding into a pit sadness from which we cannot climb. The former (change us) offers a path and new hope. Our mindset belongs to us, not to our circumstances, and we have the power to decide what our mindset will be.
Changing our perspective and ourselves in the face of loss is not easy, but it is not impossible. One small change a day moves us one step along a healing path. Change does not have to be absolute and instant. It can be small and still powerful.
What is one change you can make in yourself today?
A.N.Carroll 