Influence
Every time you go online, I see someone posting an inspirational quote, something aspirational, telling one to “be great,” to “keep going,” to “rise above it all.” It’s always positive, always encouraging, and always written as if the world is against you and you need to fight through it.
But I think we’re missing something, a second part that’s rarely talked about. There’s this assumption that the person seeking advice is the one who deserves it or needs it. But what about the person causing the problem? What advice is given to them? We always assume that advice is meant for the victim, the one being mistreated, never for the person doing the mistreating.
If advice is always aimed at helping people rise above negativity, then who are the “negative” ones? Do they also go through the same process of reflecting, seeking guidance, and trying to improve? I’d say most people who do harmful things don’t even realise it. They’re unaware of the ways they might be bullying or hurting others.
We all tell stories about our lives, and in most stories there’s always a villain, but that is never us. If everyone has a story, then that means everyone alive has a villain in their story as well, which means each one of us is a villain in someone else’s life. You are not always the victim. You need advice on how to recognise when you are the negative force in someone else’s life.
Maybe we should start seeking advice not only on how to rise above pain, but also on how to stop causing it. How to notice the things we do unconsciously that make other people’s lives harder. How to confront the fact that, sometimes, we’re the ones creating the problems we complain about.
We need to flip our perspective. Instead of only thinking about how life affects us, we should think about what we contribute to life. What are we giving it? Because it’s not all positive and most of the time, we’re the ones putting negative things into the world. We should start looking for advice that helps us minimize that, that helps us recognise when our actions are the reason life feels so unbalanced.
Sometimes, when things aren’t going the way you want, it’s not just bad luck or someone else’s fault. It could be life responding to your own energy, a kind of push-and-pull between what you give and what you receive. Your situation is a mirror reflecting the negativity you’ve been putting out.
The next time I go online and see someone posting about their worth, I’ll think: your worth is not only in what you overcome, but also in how your influence on the people around you. Because real power isn’t just about attracting the good but being conscious of the good but also the bad that you give to the world.