Why does it always happen to me?

It’s like Murphy’s law. If there is even a slight chance that something bad will happen, it will happen. And not only that, whatever that disagreement is will fall on me. It’s as if the entire universe conspired against me: I fail in my emotional relationships, my plans always go awry and I am little more than a magnet for bad luck… Because everything happens to me?

Stephen Hawking said that life would be tragic if it were not funny. Let’s face it, there are times when we feel that way. It seems ironic and sounds like a joke, but there are moments when everything seems awry and there is no way to make sense of all the disagreements that happen to us. It is when the succession of “many few” ends up making up a “many” and we no longer know where to go.

In those moments of our existence, when everything seems to go against us, when it is necessary to become aware of something: we must stop and reflect. Because What is actually happening is that emotions are overwhelming our thoughts and focus.

It’s not that “everything is happening to you” it’s that you are also making it possible with your attitude. Let’s analyze this question a little more.

Why does it always happen to me?

It has happened to all of us on more than one occasion. Fate, sometimes, orchestrates its threads against us and, suddenly, our car breaks down.we get locked in an elevator, we receive a notification from the treasury and there is a controllers’ strike and we cannot take that plane that will take us on vacation… Why does it always happen to me? We say to ourselves with resignation.

Bad luck (in a way) exists, just like good luck. However, we promote both spheres ourselves with our mental focus, with our own actions and disposition. Others, however, It is simple chance that brings bliss or doom.

Now, sometimes a very specific event can occur that is also psychologically exhausting. There are people who assume that theirs is a chain of catastrophic misfortunes.

Far from sounding ironic or even funny, there is evidence that these types of attributions lead to classic learned helplessness. That is to say, They are those situations in which you think that you no longer have control over anything and that whatever you do, it will always bring you the same result.: disappointment, error and suffering.

Behind the classic expression “Because everything happens to me?” Deeper realities are often hidden that we must understand. We analyze them.

Heider’s attribution theory

Fritz Heider was an Austrian psychologist known for his contributions to the understanding of interpersonal relationships. His approach was related to the Gestalt school and the explanation he gave us about why people interpret things the way we do is still interesting. He delved into aspects such as common sense and that area of ​​human behavior that he called naive psychology.

Now… what did Heider tell us about the reasons why we sometimes think that everything bad happens to us? According to the author, this It is due to the type of attribution that we apply to the events that happen to us or surround us.

For example, there are people who say they have very bad luck in love. They always suffer disappointments, establish dependent relationships and even fall in love most of the time with narcissistic people. Why does it always happen to me? they lament. They attribute these experiences to bad luck, to fatal destiny.

However, they are rarely able to do a reflection exercise to understand that, perhaps, they themselves are responsible for this happening. In reality, it is not life that punishes them with this love sickness. In reality, they are the ones who do not learn from experience.

This external attribution is what causes us to become helpless, in thinking that everything is beyond our control.

Why does it always happen to me? Learn to change focus

Many of us go through those times in life when bad luck is not with us. We feel victims of circumstances, unexpected events or facts that do not seem fair to us. As the psychologist Albert Ellis pointed out in his book The new guide to a rational life, People are very prone to interpret many of the things that happen to us irrationally.

However, we must be clear about one aspect that he himself highlighted: There is something more important than what happens to us and it is the way we interpret what happens to us.. What does this mean? It implies that if I am fired from work it will be of no use to me to complain and point out why it always happens to me, why I have such a streak of bad luck.

This approach is unhelpful, unhelpful and immobilizing. What’s more, it places us in that zone where we assume that we have no control over what happens to us. What good is this type of thinking for us? Absolutely nothing. Therefore, We must eliminate from our minds that regret, that complaint about why unpleasant things always happen to us. The ideal is to assume the following:

In our daily lives, good and less good things will happen.. They are all learning opportunities. When something negative happens to us we cannot remain paralyzed. You have to reflect and act. Proactive behavior is that which begins to generate new options after a failure, after a disappointment or an error. We must learn from what happened and act to transform our reality in the direction we want. It is true that there are many things that are beyond our control. However, There are others over which we do have power: motivation, attitude, skills, will and commitment.

These last factors can move the world. Let’s not doubt it. Within us there is a force that enables us to work firmly on our happiness and well-being. It’s just about thinking well, thinking better and eliminating negativity and the shadow of helplessness.

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