This will take you 3 minutes to read and will be useful to you for the rest of your life

This is an essay by Viktor Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and founder of the discipline we know today as Logotherapy.

Who Makes You Suffer?

Who hurts you? Who breaks your heart? Who damages you? Who steals your happiness or takes away your peace? Who controls your life?...

Your parents? Your partner? An old love? Your mother-in-law? Your boss?...

Guilty?

You could make a whole list of suspects or guilty parties. It's probably the easiest thing to do. All you have to do is think a little and name all those people who haven't given you what you deserve, who have treated you badly, or who have simply left your life, leaving you with a deep pain that you still don't understand today.

But do you know? You don't need to look for names. The answer is simpler than it seems, and that is that nobody makes you suffer, nobody breaks your heart, nobody damages you, or takes away your peace. Nobody has the ability to do so, unless you allow it, unless you open the door and give them control of your life.

Every day I am more convinced that man suffers not for what happens to him, but for what he interprets. Many times we suffer by trying to give an answer to questions that drill our mind like: Why didn't he/she call me? Why doesn't he/she look for me? Why didn't he/she say what I wanted to hear? Why did he/she do what bothers me the most? Why did he/she look at me badly? and many others that for reasons of space I am going to omit.

We don't suffer because of the other person's action, but because of what we feel, think, and interpret about what they did, as a direct consequence of having given control to someone outside of ourselves.

It's Up to You

The phrases that lovers usually say to each other like: "My love, you make me so happy", "Without you I die", "I can't live my life without you", are completely unreal and false. Not because I am against love, on the contrary, I consider myself a very passionate and romantic person, but because really no other person (as far as I understand) has the ability to enter your mind, modify your biochemical processes, and make you happy or make your heart stop beating.

Definitely, nobody can decide for us. Nobody can force us to feel or do something we don't want to do, we have to live in freedom. We can't be where we're not needed or where they don't want our company. Maybe we can't control what happens, but we can decide how to react and interpret what happens to us.

The next time you think that someone hurts you, makes you suffer, or controls your life, remember: It's not him, it's not her... IT'S YOU who allows it, and it's in your hands to regain control.

"Man can have everything taken from him but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."