Right now the world is a pretty crazy place. It is easy for us to feel overwhelmed. The one thing we have to remember is that the world has been through many dark times before and yet we are still here. We as individuals don’t control the situations of others, but we can control our own immediate circles in life.
The passage below is often attributed to the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but there’s some debate that it may have been educator and psychologist Haim G. Ginott.
Whomever wrote it we may never know, but the words hit me hard. I am the decisive element.
I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.