In the recovery field, I deal with many troubled people who blame today's problems on how they were raised. They blame the past for their failure to succeed in relationships, careers or whatever else they set out to do.
As a result, they muddle through life, drinking, using recreational drugs, or serial sex partners to ease their self-induced pain. They might achieve some degree of success, only to self-destruct because they can't get over whatever happened to them.
Now some of these folks truly have been abused, either sexually or emotionally, and have reason to be distressed about those events. But I always ask them the same question: do you want to squander the precious moments of your life reacting to what happened 20 or 30 years ago? Events that may be distorted or magnified by time and the constant reliving of them in your mind?
I remember one client who had a wonderful upbringing with all the amenities and privileges. Yet she blames her past for her current misery. No matter what goes on in her life she finds someone else to blame. She's constructed a fantasy personal history that explains away all her failures and unhappiness - a history that bears no semblance of truth.
The reality for all of us is that life is sometimes a bitch, filled with disappointment and unhappiness. And the way to get happy is to be real with ourselves and recognize that life sometimes sucks. If we can really believe that then we can roll with the times when we're down. We can accept that things don't always go our way. That the world is sometimes quite unfair.
Obstacles and pain often teach us the most valuable lessons.
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