We are not always responsible for the realities around us, but we are responsible for the expectations we set, the representation we make out of those realities.
What to do is related to the situation. But Attitude is a choice. Do we see the world as friendly or threatening? Do we see it as abundant or as a zero sum game?
Happiness or optimism is a choice (in the limit of brains’ chemicals potential). Kindness or giving is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you.
Human sciences focus more and more on “knowing fields”, a term created by Albrecht Mahr (German physician, psychoanalyst), which is all that surrounds us at any given moment. It is made up of the situations we are in, but moreover by the people and their attitudes. We are within the field at all times and we need to bear in mind that context energy is created by who we are being while we are doing what we are doing.
The first choice we have to do, is to choose to act either consciously or compulsively. Funny enough, the later seems more real: reactions seem authentic where responds sometimes is considered faked. A pity, since reactions do not always give much choice. Paraphrasing Viktor Frankl, between any stimulus and our reaction there is a space where lies our freedom to choose our attitude, and then to act. If attitude change remains paramount, in the work we do @Krauthammer we still focus on “behavior change” which cannot happen without the right attitude. And we do it because as Jerry Sternin says: “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.”
So what is your next new way of acting? With which chosen attitude?