Thought for the Week

Timothy D. Stein, MFT, CSAT

August 19, 2013

Your life and your situation are two completely different things.

How often do you hear people say “My like sucks!” or “My life is awesome!”  While they are expressing their experience, their choice of words is wrong.  They are really talking about their situation, not their life.  Situations come and go.  Life continues on.  Situations can be comfortable or miserable.  Life encompasses the entire emotional spectrum.  When we start mistaking our situation with our life, we convert a temporary experience to a permanent one.  When we correctly identify our life vs. our situation, we accept that there will be moments of joy and moments of pain, moments of pride and moments of shame, moments of fear and moments of peace.  Separating our life from our situation empowers us to recognize that one difficult moment is only that, a moment.

What is my situation?  Am I recognizing that my situation is temporary?  If not, how would my experience change if I accepted that my current situation, while joyful or painful, is temporary?