Point of No Return

How do people react when they are in a situation they cannot change? Have you ever found yourself in such a situation? If so, how did you react? If not, how do you think you would react? 

Basically, I think there are two ways a person reacts to a situation in which they cannot change. The first type is the type that continues to moan, complain, or worry about the issue at hand. I'll call them the "stressers". The second type of person is the realist; knowing that nothing can be done to change the situation, he shrugs it off and accepts the circumstances. Instead of fretting and stressing, this person leaves the past behind and instead looks towards the future and the new situation that unravels around them.

These situations often occur in life. When a sudden change in a person's fortune occurs, their situation changes almost instantly. I was expecting to go down to Taichung to study after 9th grade. Then I got transferred here. Our house was broken into a month ago. I missed the train to go to Taipei three weeks ago. My friend transferred to the Philippines to study, and inevitably it meant breaking up with his girlfriend. Once, at a school spring retreat, the camp's councilor dared us to go bridge-jumping into the river below. Somehow I agreed to it, and me and a couple of other friends headed up the path to the bridge. Once there I realized the height of the bridge - easily four stories high. Naturally, I freaked. But chickening out at that point would be a disgrace to all men, and so I squared up, and after watching the councilor do a backflip, I jumped (minus the backflip).

All this is to say that we are always caught in situations, sometimes unpleasant, that we cannot change. I like to think myself as more of the realist. When something goes wrong, or a change in tides occurs, there isn't much to do but to "suck it up", "walk it off", and accept the situation as it is and focus on what is to come. There may be pain and grief, but those feelings are transitory and will pass. I know people who are "stressers" and who are realists. When those stressers talk to me about how they feel, I can sympathize and may empathize, but I also tell them that soon they will need to get over it and look at the new future in store for them.

Of course, the far extremes are also unfavorable. Those who are extremist realists usually become cold and heartless, and those who are far left stressers are emotional and vulnerable. I believe that feelings are a natural part of the human mind, and instead of ignoring pain or stress we need to acknowledge it and make peace with it. That is the healthy way.