Victim or Victorious

Early this week, I was held up and robbed in broad daylight by a guy holding a knife. I don’t want to go into the details of it, except to say that with the effort of some brave strangers, that young fellow is now in jail.



Human mind is amazing- sometimes it just erases memory. I was astounded when I couldn’t rightly identify the picture of the culprit at the police station. None of the pictures looked anything like the image in my memory – a young kid (seemingly innocent kid with skinny knife.



There are two ways you can react to any situation in your life – put up a fight or be a victim. Sometime’s it is so much easier to be a victim –you can wallow in self-pity, and for a long time get sympathy (read special treatment) from others. I suppose it can get addictive to play a victim, maybe you might just start enjoying it and forget to move on because it is so much easier to just give in. When you identify yourself as a victim, you conjure up the image of a helpless damsel in distress waiting for a prince in shining armor to come and rescue you. There are some situations in life where you are indeed helpless – having a fatally ill disease, loss of a dear one, but the choice of feeling victimized or not is in your hands. You are always empowered to make the choice –be a fighter and be victorious or play the victim and slowly poison your life with self-defeatist attitude.



All of us have gone through the phase of feeling victimized - the problem is getting over it and moving on. The solution is in your hand.



A fighter on the other hand, will ignore all the wrong-doings, and plough along –sometimes ignoring or blocking the memories associated with fear or negativity, leading unintentionally to higher stress levels. Feeling empowered gives you the confidence to face any future adversities too.



We all behave differently, we all react differently, and we are all unique. Not everyone is aggressive or assertive to be a fighter, yet if all are aware that ultimately it is not what happened to us that shapes us, but how we react to it and that reaction is 100% in our control. We are more than our grief, and if we don’t let that grief or fear take over our thoughts, we can emerge victorious!