Our Planet's Major Class Division
(From Work For Yourself No Matter Who You Work For © 2001)

Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him.
- Aldous Huxley

The most significant class division on our planet has less to do with circumstance, nationality, race, gender, age, religious preference, intellect or education than it has to do with how people react to and are affected by the events in their lives. Simply stated, the world is divided into two classes of people: those who let circumstances and events determine their attitude and outlook, and those who do not.

We are a running subtotal of how the events of our lives affect us. Whether we were treated badly as kids, our amorous advances were rejected, our commissions were cut, we were passed over for a deserved promotion or can’t find a job, it is our reactions and attitudes during and after these events that eventually define us. It is basically who we become.

If you choose, good and bad events can be passing scenery as you sail on your journey of self-discovery. By monitoring and trying to improve the effects that negative events have on your attitude, you will promote self-improvement not self-pity. Your responses will take on more significance than the events themselves, and as you track improvement in your reactions, a new world will open up to you.

Here’s some advice to help you get on track. The next time you’re faced with a disappointing event choose to view the situation as an observer and not a participant. To observe a flood from high ground is far better than dealing with it in the water where your attitude and emotions are being swept away by the current. As you stand there on safe ground, simply say to yourself, “I will not let this event effect my attitude, for I choose to have my attitude shaped not by the event, but instead, by how I react to it.”

Each event of your life, good or bad, is like a grain of sand on a beach -- and you have a choice of how each affects you. The running subtotal of how you react to the events of your life will greatly determine how you feel about yourself –- and how you feel about yourself is the foundation you build your life on and how you affect the lives of those you love.