It wasn’t their words that hurt me. It was my reaction to them.
“You don’t know what you’re doing. You need to do better.” It wasn’t just the words. It was the sharp tone, the way they were said — loud and mean. The sting of being called out like that. My heart pounded. My face burned. My mind spun with a hundred retorts I didn’t say. And inside? I crumbled. For days, I replayed that moment in my head. Overanalysed every word, every look, every tiny detail. Why did they say that? Did I really mess up? Was I not good enough? And the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Then, it hit me. It wasn’t their words that hurt me. It was my reaction to them. Viktor Frankl once said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” That day, I didn’t just lo...