136 – When Bad Things Happen - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN…
Today I’m going to talk about the fact that life isn’t fair at all, and a lot of bad stuff happens. How we should deal with that as men.We all know this is true, we have all had bad things happen to us.  We have all been treated unfairly at one time or another as well.  Some men have been treated much worse than others.  Other men certainly feel like they have gotten the bad end of the stick…but it’s really all about perception isn’t it?
Bad stuff happens to everybody across the board.  Some people are born into bad stuff and others earn bad things through their own behavior. The fact is that bad stuff happens to everyone from the most privileged, all the way down to the least privileged. It’s true…my bad stuff might not even seem bad to you, or visa-versa.  The guy living in a trailer park in some forgotten town in the midwest will have a much different idea of what BAD is, than his counterpart attending an Ivy league school to become a lawyer or doctor…but their perceptions are both equally valid.  The things that happen that we perceive as bad are entirely a matter of our own perception.
There is a reason I am trying to establish that bad stuff happens to everybody.  Because it’s real easy for people to get caught up looking at other peoples lives, instead of their own.  So lets agree for a minute that bad stuff happens to everybody.   Let’s Not worry about how much worse our bad stuff is than someone else’.
Now lets talk about ways to deal with bad stuff.  There are lots of different kindsof bad stuff.  I think in most cases, a high percentage of our bad stuff that happens is brought on by our own choices.  That is how it has been for me in my life most of the time.
I personally am thankful for this kind of thing.  Because when I make a bad choice, and something bad happens as a result, that is actually my path to a better life.  Because I can learn from that mistake and improve my behavior in the future. A lot of guys choose not to look at it that way though.  Instead they blame someone or something else, they make an excuse.  When you blame something else or make an excuse for a bad choice…you don’t learn anything, and you are therefore doomed to repeat it.
There are tons of other kinds of bad things and injustices that happen to guys.  Just like in the first example, the absolute worst thing you can do is allow yourself to become a victim.If you become a victim of something, wether it be the economy, politics, society, the justice system, family court, your gender, your sexual preference, your race, your ex, or your culture…the moment you become a victim of something you have placed yourself in a subordinate role to that thing, whatever it is.
I want to make a distinction here between being victimized, and being a victim.  Being victimized is the thing that happens to you whatever it is, but being a victim is the state of mind you deal with it in. For example in 2008 I was victimized by the economy and had to abandon a lucrative real estate career, but I did not allow that circumstance to turn me into a victim. I didn’t become a victim…I just went and started a new career doing something else, because my blaming the economy or the situation would not make anything better, it wouldn’t change the facts, I would still be out of a job.
Here’s another example;  Right now there are certain movements and mens organizations that are blaming feminism for the fact that they can’t get a date and have no success with women. Rather than acknowledging their own inadequacies and focusing on improving them, instead of figuring out how to become attractive to women, these men have become victims.  They have placed themselves in a subordinate role to the feminist movement and are blaming this movement for their own inadequacies, as though women should be under some obligation to be attracted to them. 
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