Joanne Smith describes a moment at Blackpool Tower Circus when a performer's joke about personal responsibility struck her: if you didn't enjoy the show, that's on you. She realized she controls her own experience in life, whether it's staying calm when a water bottle bursts during an ultra-run or choosing anger instead.
the way of truth and not like an illusion of what I believe was creating my experience and actually see it for what it really was. So at the circus, I'd been sort of like, not really, I understood it logically, but I didn't really understood it like to the point where I could see it to be real for me. But I went to the circus, oh wow, it must have been nearly Oh, about 2 years ago, because my— we took my mum for her birthday, and it's nearly her birthday again, and we went to the Blackpool Tower Circus, and at the end of the circus he just told a big joke, like he just basically said if you didn't enjoy the show— well, actually he said, I hope you did enjoy the show, but he said, but for those of you that didn't enjoy the show, then it's your own fault, and it was just a joke, like— It was just like, but for me, I was just like, oh, I had my awakening moment where I realized, yes, because I'm the one that creates my experience in life. And it's like when you're out on an ultra run and something goes wrong and you lose all your water and your bottle pops and everything's, you know, you're like, I can choose how to respond. Am I going to respond calmly? Am I going to be angry? It's on me.
