Do you want to be miserable?
Context: city workers are tearing up the street outside my building. They start jackhammering at 7am and the noise hasn’t let up for the past two weeks. We don’t know why they’re doing it or how long they plan to work.
My neighbors and I talk about it. One of my neighbors, an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable woman, keeps talking about how bad it is. At first I commiserated. I ran into her today and she started complaining about it again.
I responded,
No matter what we do they’re going to do this work. My only question is will I be miserable about it.
This perspective applies to most problems. If you can’t do anything about something, you have no choice but to have it in your life. You have a choice about how you feel.
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