Uncontrollable Events

Hyrum W. Smith was quoted as saying "What is important is not that there are uncontrollable events in our lives, but how we respond to them"

This has been a favorite quote of mine for years. I have it on my wall at work and look at it quite frequently. I came across this quote just after September 11, 2001. I have an American Flag on the page along with the quote. I am not sure where I came across the quote but it seems to fit for me.

I do believe there are events in our lives that we can control but I also know there are things that happen to us that we can not control. Sometimes we look back on things that we did have control over and wonder why we went left instead of right. We may wonder what would have happened if I would have taken the different road. I think about that sometimes with some of my early choices I had for my career. I also think about that with some of the opportunities that I have had over the last couple of years and the decision I made to turn down the offers.

I do know that there are uncontrollable events that happen in every one's life. Some of those things are terrible and people do not deserve to be treated that way. There are some horrible things that happen to people everyday and I feel for those people. It is not fair, they did nothing to deserve those things. People that get abused, physically, mentally or emotionaly did not ask for that to happen to them. I do like to think as Hyrum Smith said that we have the ability to respond to them in any way we want. We can't control what others say to us or about us but we can control how we react to it. Do we fire back or do we let it go and consider the source? When someone hurts us, do we go out of our way to try and hurt them back? I would hope not.

By no means am I saying we just need to take everything that happens to us and internalize it but I do know for me, that; by taking a minute, hour, day or week to think and respond to events that happen in my life has helped me with my own temper and will most likely prolong my life here on earth.

I firmly believe that we have the ability to take the higher road when events happen to us because of the gift of free agency that we all have. Even though bad things happen to each of us, as we discipline ourselves to respond in ways that may change the event to a positive I believe we can be happier and healthier.