The people who believe the self-help nonsense of "Life isn't what happens to you, it's how you react to what happens" have never really struggled or faced a cascading series of bad luck scenarios.

Quite the opposite. I've diagnosed CPTSD, and the only way out of hell, is changing your own perspective. Trying to accept, reframe.

It's pain. It's slow. It's hard. It's the only way.

EDIT: To anyone in need: I understand seeking professional help is hard. It took me over 20 years. I learned a lot from "Complex PTSD": by Pete Walker.

I don't know. That kind of advice is usually given by somebody who's been through it and is on the other side.

It's like many of the survivors of Auschwitz and the Holocaust in general said that overall the experience gave them a lot more than it took from them.

Of course, we're only looking at the survivors and not the people who died, but it does kind of say that yes even if things are incredibly bad, if you survive them they can get better.

I see a similar issue in designing systems that must stay operational. Designing for a single fault is pretty simple, but designing for 2 or more faults becomes difficult and expensive, fast.

Power supply for instance. You can get a 2nd power supply in case your 1st goes out. You can get a UPS in case your power goes out, you can get a 2nd ups in case your first goes out, you can get your own generator and generator maintenance service plans in case of a multi hour outage. At this point you’re still under $50k

You can design, zoning/permit, and build your own fuel reserves. You can have a separate grid interconnect agreement built. You can build a power plant with railway interconnects for for fuel delivery.

This isn't an unpopular opinion....

Self help books are a joke and have been for like, 30 years now?

Everyone knows they don't work, but the dumbest 1% is still a lot of potential buyers on highly marked up products like books.

To me, it is a balance of both.

Life is definitely what happens to you. That alone is strikingly important, as much of it is not stuff you have any control over. You are quite literally a victim of most of life.

However, how you react to what you can control is also critical in dealing with it, in that you can identify things you can very much directly affect in some way.

Stoicism includes the ability and skills to tell the difference between the two, coping with the former as best as possible (to retain your mental health), and actively strategizing on how to deal with the latter as effectively as possible in order to minimize any negative outcome or maximize positive outcomes.

Not unpopular, just simply not true.

I do not believe the kind of mentality that you can make anything out of any situation with your mindset or things like that, for example that idea that if you are just super positive and hard working life will just give you sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes you are dealt a very bad hand and you can't win the game. It's more like the quote "what doesn't kill you makes you wish it did" However, the quote in post from OP doesn't imply that you can just wield any circumstance your way. It just says that you only have control over how you react to it, which is true. Example: I got laid off at my job last week. I felt upset and very sad. My instinct reaction is to go retreat in my shell and not do any of my responsibilities because I feel depressed, sad and angry. But that will only give me more shit in the future. Instead I went to my other job, met friends, and tried to find some silver lining and make the best of it.

Yes this quote can be used in a toxic positivity kind of mindset but it's also almost always in your best interest to make the best out of your situation, even if it's shitty.

Naw, those people are just manipulators and domineers who want everyone around them following the rules they benefit from.

It's all bullshit for sure.

But mostly cause people don't understand that someone while similar is exactly unlike them. No path or options or thoughts for one person will ever work for another.

Life is very random and chaotic and luck based. People can think they can suggest something but it will literally never happen again as it did for them. Each person uniquely weaving their way through. It's also extremely unfair and that's just a plain fact that can't be even argued against.

I find self help books egregious and awful but some people find them comforting and that it helps them feel seen. But no one wants to feel like they will never be truly understood even if it's an impossibility because we can grab pieces of them and know that.

Life is unfair. You live and then you die and you get a bunch of free time in the middle to do what you can. I'm sorry it had to happen to you, I'm happy that you get a chance to voice that and I hope you feel the same as often as you can.

Yeah, the phrase is terrible how it is commonly used, just like people who screwed up 'pulling up by the bootstraps' to mean try really hard or say '?money is the root of all evil' instead of 'the love of money...'

Yes, people can be overwhelmed by bad luck, but people can also be dismissive of good luck and both types of people can end up miserable. Life is both things that happen to you AND how you react.

I think the ability to react to what life brings in a healthy way can be really great for you. I don't think it's bullshit.

But too often I hear this from people who are just trying to wave off the struggle of others. I know people who are scared to engage empathy when it comes to a person with serious bad luck. Perhaps they would be too devastated or it would remind them that they too could get unlucky one day.

So they blame the victim and say it's in the victim's head, the victim should try harder. And it makes them feel safe, because they, of course, have the right attitude. This way they also get rid of the feeling they should help the victim.

Those people make bullshit of this otherwise good advice.

There's a way to hear that saying that's dumb as fucking bricks, and there's a way that's profound and healing and beautiful and constitutes a surprisingly large portion of everything you need in life. Sometimes it flicks back and forth moment to moment in the same brain.

Check out the book “man’s search for meaning”. It’s basically exactly what you are talking about written by a psychiatrist that was a prisoner in Auschwitz

The physical sensations of nervousness and excitement aren’t that different; it’s what you think that determines whether it feels good or bad.

The feeling you get when you go to the gym and lift heavy could almost be described as enjoyable in the context of working out, but if you woke up in the middle of the night feeling the same way, you'd probably call an ambulance.

Similarly, if something bad has happened or you’re worried, there’s often a brief moment upon waking when everything feels fine - until you remember the issue, and then it doesn’t.

There's three examples that illustrate how it’s not the event itself that makes you feel bad, but how you react and think about it.

Capitalist copium sold to peasants lol