If you won 10k, would you be happy?
If you lost 5k in the stock market, would you be sad?
The expected answer to both questions is YES. Anything else would be surprising.
What if the answer is, “it depends.”
What does that mean?
Events that happen are just that. However, our interpretation of those events gives them a different meaning.
Everything is relative.
If you won 10k and everyone else won 20k, you would be happy, but your point of reference changes from 0 or 10k to the difference between the amount others won and what you won.
If you lost 5k in the stock market, all your other friends lost 10k. Your sadness changes, the interpretation of that event changes. It is no longer you losing 5k; it is you losing less than your friends.
On the flip side is when our feelings are just that. They aren’t affected by others losing less or others winning more. We are happy because of the event itself and not relative to others.
The stories we tell ourselves or interpret events make us act differently, like an egg and a potato act in boiling water.
To end this, here are two questions to ponder on:
What stories do we tell ourselves? How do we interpret events that happen to us?
Are our feelings relative or absolute?