The ultimate truth determining the quality of our lives is that it’s not the things, events, or what people offer us that bother us; it’s our own interpretation of things that affects us, however difficult, intense, or automatic our response may be.
It’s about how much response-ability we take that counts; in other words, it’s about our ability to manage our own responses. While it is easier for some people to manage their responses, Ultimately, everyone has this choice.
Accepting this “insight” means we begin to take back ownership. You may not know how but you can know you do have a choice right now.
That is the essence of what the tools we have today can do: They empower us to overcome, improve, or diminish our unwanted responses to life’s difficulties.
There is a Buddhist technique based on the reality that there is a stimulus and a response, and there is a space between those two. The trick is to get into that space, that neutral place between stimulus and response. This is just one way to recognise we have a choice.