by Megan Sy, M.A., M.S.
I once had a 7-year-old client stare into a water bottle and tell me that she wished she could “go inside the water bottle so that [she] won’t have to listen to [me] anymore.” Said with such candor, it was truly a kids-say-the-darndest-things moment. Upon reflection afterward, I realized how interesting her statement was. Rather than wish I would stop talking or leave her alone, what she essentially wanted was to be underwater so she couldn’t hear me even if I did keep talking. What a creative solution!
Often, our instinct is to want others to change. My boss should stop being so unfair. My friend should be more understanding. The problem is that the things we want to change are the same things that we do not have the power to change. In addition, we often fail to see how changing our own perspective can change our situation. This kind of thinking is rooted in the idea that happiness (or any other emotion) is produced by external factors and that we have no control over it. This is a myth. In reality, happiness and other emotions, whether positive or negative, depend on how we think and interpret events in our lives.
The change in perspective is easy to talk about, but difficult to do. But every time I catch myself thinking that I want external things to change, I remember my client and her water bottle and consider whether there is something I can do to help myself in the situation.
“When confronted with a situation which we cannot change, we are then challenged to change ourselves” –Viktor Frankl
