Your business, their business, and the universe

A few months ago, I read a little book by a woman name Byron Katie, that I found very useful.

It's no good arguing with reality, she says. Reality always wins. When we say "This shouldn't have happened" we're arguing with reality. In fact it should have happened, because it did. The laws of physics and nature are fairly deterministic. If you happen to be standing in the path of a bullet, then you should have gotten shot because bullet's go in straight lines and because you made decisions, unrelated to getting shot, that put you in that precise place at that precise time. And the person who shot the bullet should have done so because of a causal chain that led to pulling the trigger, which pretty invariably leads to a bullet leaving a gun. And so on.

Point being that this is a universe of causes and effects, and if you leave the causes unchanged then the effects are inevitable. Which leads us to the only thing that you might have a chance of changing--and that is your future. You can't change them. They make their own decisions. You can't change the universe because the laws of nature are beyond anyone's changing. But you can change you.

So when faced a problem, Katie says, check to see if it's your business, their business or the universe's business (she says God's business, but tranlates it as I have.)

If it's their business, then it's theirs to deal with, not yours. If it's the universe's then you are fighting the universe, always a losing battle.

If it's your business then it's yours to deal with, and there are lots of tools--some from Katie, some from others--that can help you deal with your business.