What happened to me at that time is actually pretty common to most people. Not that they feel like dying, but in the sense of how the actions of others affect them deeply.

The natural man of flesh and blood is highly dependent on other people, especially those close to him. Our human nature has its natural affections and expectations, such as expecting that our mother or father will never disappoint us, that husband or wife will never cheat on us, that our boss will be fair, that our colleagues will be honest, our neighbors will be respectful — and so on.

Of course, that presents a big problem: People do not always do what is expected of them. So when they fail us, we become hostages of our feelings, those feelings provoked by what people do to us: hurt, anger, sadness, abandonment, rejection, anger, depression, disappointment, loneliness, grudges, and all sorts of bad feelings.

How to deal with this problem then? Is there a way to avoid all this pain and hurt? Yes, there is. I’ll get into that tomorrow, here in this blog.

But for now, keep this clearly in mind: Among the biggest reasons for your unhappiness are your dependence on others and your (dashed) expectations of them.

If you want to be truly happy, you will have to rise above them, as I eventually learned and did.

More details tomorrow.