Bob Resnick taught a simple formula for life.

E + R = O

Stuff happens to us all the time. Good fortune, bad fortune, puzzling fortune and benign fortune. It’s just stuff. We respond to this fortune or events. This produces an outcome.

These outcomes determine our future, happiness and destiny.

What if you don’t like the outcomes? Can you change the events, probably not. All you can do is control the response.

Sometimes the events look like good luck. Sometime it looks like bad luck or misfortune. Our response to these events creates an outcome and future. The key is we can control our response. We cannot control the events mostly although we can choose to avoid events that might cause problems which is also a choice or response. Our ability to control our response to events is one of our unique human endowments, the ability to choose our response.

We can create outcomes to events by changing the way we respond which usually is a reaction not a choice. Your response can significantly improve your life or if you respond like you always have you will get what you have always got.

Do not blame the events of your life. The E Events plus R Response equals your O Outcome. E’s aren’t responsible for the O’s, your response R is.

Now you may be complaining about your life conditions. That is fine because it means you know it could be better. Complaining about events won’t create better outcomes. Better responses will.