Dear Friends,
It seems to me, you and I owe others, exactly what they owe us. Sadly that rational thought is lost on many. Especially those who consider themselves victims. The victim mindset is one of weakness and want. The victim thinks others owe him or her something they are not getting. This allows the victim to forego action to rectify their own life, because it is someone else responsibility, to fix their lives for them. If asked what responsibility they have to fix other people’s lives however, the victim will complain, “How can I fix anyone else life when mine is such a wreck!” Showing they are hobbled, not by a physical deformity or sucking wound, but psychically. The problem is their mindset. Everyone has agency, unless we willingly give it up, we all have power, unless we unplug it, and we all have ability.
The world is filled with victims. They are everywhere. You can tell who a victim is when you say hi. The victim will then harangue you with a myriad of troubles. That is all they have in their lives… problems. The world is out to get them. Victims only see troubles, trials and tension. They are blind to the good. We are all guilty of this to some extent. Most of our minds are inhibitory. We only see that which our minds do not filter out. Our brains have to filter out much of the world else we would quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the input. So our brains set up filters to exclude that which is irrelevant. That filter however is programmed by us, for good or bad. When our filters exclude the irrelevant and redundant they are effective and functional.
When our filters make us blind to the good things around us it is counter productive. The victim can be surrounded by good wishes and love, but will only see the one scowl, and base their entire attitude on that one scowl, ignoring all the love and good wishes. This clearly is not the best path through life. To think everyone owes you, and filtering out all the good, makes one’s life a living hell. There are those who prefer Hell to Heaven since Hell is what they have got used to. Moreover, Heaven is unknowable to someone who only sees evil and is unable to do for themselves. One way then to stop being a victim, assuming one wants to stop living in Hell, is to make an effort to reprogram our filters. Actually see what is going on rather than only the negative fraction the victim dwells on.
Reciprocal attribution is the theory that whatever one person attributes to another, is justifiably attributed back to the first person. If someone claims to have the “right” to take from another, that other has the same right then to take from the thief. If someone says another is less than human, for whatever reason, that first person has announced he or she is subhuman. When a victim says others owe it to them to make him happy, then he is also saying he has the obligation to make others happy. If he doesn’t follow through on his obligation, that he himself set, why should others bend to his will? We have the same right to attribute to her what she attributes to us. The victim then, to be consistent, must work for others at least as hard as she thinks others must work for her.
This is a situation any of us can find ourselves in, and indeed, many of us do cycle through a spate of victim hood. Most of us recover and recognize the perniciousness of that mindset. Sadly, some never realize how their victim hood mindset promotes their victim hood. Those trapped in their victim mindset, would be better served to change their minds, thus changing their life circumstances. Because everything humanity has ever created had it’s germ in the mind of someone. We manifest the world around us, for good or bad, circumstances can interfere, but if we have the right mindset they are mere speed bumps, not show stoppers. If you are currently a victim, think about how you can change your mind… then you will no longer be a victim.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
