13 Things That Mentally Strong People Do

There are times in life when we stew over our rotten luck, without knowing that it might be our own fault. It could be the loss of a house in foreclosure, where we might say “it shouldn’t happen to me” when the real reason is “I shouldn’t have taken out the loan in the first place.” It could be a teenager pissing about not making the basketball team, even though there were 33 other kids who didn’t make it either. We often have a tendency to wallow in self-pity, rather than find ways to make ourselves happy.

Like any great book about self-help, this one has case studies. For instance, we learn about the divorced parent who has constant competition with the ex-wife. Dad will plan on taking his daughter to Disney World, so the ex will take her there first. He’ll say he’s taking her to a theme park, so his wife does it first to one-up him. After seeing a therapist, he realizes that the problem is with him. He’s trying to buy his child’s love in order to get back at his ex-wife. The solution is to ask his daughter what SHE wants.

There are more examples in this book, one of which was a woman who spends so much time trying to please others that she can’t be happy. Nothing she does makes anybody happy either, and she ends up feeling unfulfilled. She eventually learns to stand up for herself, avoid people who make her angry, and do things that benefit her life, not others.

Booker T. Washington used to say “as long as you hold me down in a ditch, you will be in the ditch with me.” This saying really means “if you spend all your time seeking vengeance, you will have no time for anything else.” Too often we spend all our time wishing we could get back at the people who wrong us, and as a result we prolong the hurt and anger. For example, there were kid back in high school who treated me like dirt, and I hated them for it, but where are they now? They have kids who whine too much, wives who spend too much money, big mortgages to pay, and long hours at the office to pay for it all.

Thou shalt not covet his neighbor’s house. The neighbor is probably in debt because if it.