In screenwriting, we always talk about a character's want vs. their need. They always want something to change outside of them. They want to change their circumstances or the people around them.
This is what we all do. It's natural. When we believe our circumstances cause our emotions, then we respond to feeling bad by trying to change things.
But the things and people outside of us don't cause our emotions. They can't, they're not that powerful.
We cause all our emotions by how we choose to interpret our circumstances and what we make them mean in our minds.
What we need and what the characters in our favorite stories need, is an internal shift. We need to change our minds, our perspectives, and overcome the flawed ways in which we currently understand the world.
That's not to say there is one "right" way to see the world either. But there are ways of perceiving it that align with our priorities and there are perspectives that don't.
We get to pick what we choose to believe. We get to pick what we think and feel. But we don't get to pick all our circumstances.
We fight to change them because we think it's what we want when changing ourselves is really what we need.
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