Dave Kashen argues that the one thing you can control is your internal experience, not external circumstances. Resisting reality creates suffering. He uses metaphors like rain and roller coasters to show how acceptance, not blame, builds the life you want.
There are things that we can't control, so this is not like magical thinking, which sometimes people see it as. But the one thing that we can control is our experience. So sometimes people say, "Well, I can't control the weather." Yeah, as far as I understand, we don't control the weather. Maybe we influence it somehow and butterfly effect or something, but you can control your experience of the weather. If you go you know, look outside and it's raining, you can think, "Oh God, darn it, I wish it was sunny today," right? It's like we can resist what is. If you resist reality, you create suffering for yourself. Or you can look outside and say, "Oh, it's raining. Like, I'll go splash in the puddles." And, you know, I heard another metaphor recently, like two people on a roller coaster and one's like gripping for dear life, right? And just scared and tense and cortisol coursing through their veins. The other one's like, "Woo-hoo!" Or, you know, same exact experience, same life conditions and circumstances, but totally different internal experience. And if we go to even the conditions or results of life, I find most people's stance is, "Let me take as little responsibility," and really they mean blame. So, we'll which is talking about this distinction there, but let me take as little blame as possible, especially for the things that didn't go the way we planned or we wanted them to go. It's like a deflection.
