It’s the stories that the writer of a memoir tells, about the events in their life, that make a memoir more interesting than a mere listing of the events in a person’s life.

Your life is no different. It’s a series of events that stretches from birth to death.

Many of the events of your life are much like the events of my life. What makes them different is their context and how you and I interpret them as they happen.

When you accept responsibility for your life, you choose to respond to the things that happen from awareness, instead of reacting from fears based on previous experiences or misinformation. This means you see things differently and tell different stories.

Things no longer happen to you. They happen for you to experience or to give you a message to consider.

Events happen. The earthquake, or bushfire, or snow storm, or cancelled flight happens. It’s not personal. The personal bit only comes in when you interpret the event. It’s your interpretation that generates the story you tell yourself about the event, and it’s that story that inspires your response.

It’s inconvenient when your flight is cancelled. It’s devastating when a natural disaster destroys your house or kills members of your family.

Feeling like that is the human emotional response, but remember that you are not a victim. No-one arranged to cancel the flight just to inconvenience you. No-one arranged for the bushfire just to burn down your house and kill your child.

You can choose to see those events that way and behave accordingly if you wish.

Or you can acknowledge that the event happened and then wonder what lesson it holds for you before you respond. This doesn’t mean the event will not be painful but it will give you the opportunity to work through the experience, instead of letting it crush you.

Events may seem to be beyond your control but how you interpret an event and decide to respond is always within your control.

If nothing else helps, remember to breathe or count to ten before responding.