We have the power to shift our attention from something painful to something positive
Summary
- When faced with some painful, we have the power to shift our attention from something painful to something positive
Details
- This can even work if it is physical pain (unless it is unusually intense)
- This also applies even if we dont have control over what is happening to us.
References
Quotes
If we can’t exercise agency “out there,” with words or deeds, we can usually make choices “in here,” inside the mind. Unless something is extraordinarily painful, physically or emotionally, we have the power to shift attention away from it to something more enjoyable or useful. For example, when I sit in my dentist’s chair, I’ll deliberately remember walking through high alpine meadows in Yosemite National Park. We also have power over how we think about situations and relationships, such as putting them in perspective. The less power we have “out there,” the more important it is to exercise agency “in here.”
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.