Your ability to change the universe is extremely limited. You can’t effect more than the most miniscule changes, especially in other people. You can’t keep it from raining.
The secret power that you have is that you can move the whole universe around you. When it strikes, you can move. You can’t block, but you can dodge. You can adjust your position.
An enormous amount of pain in people’s lives comes from the sense that they wish to own a particular position in the universe, even if that position is hurting them. Someone buys a house on a flood plain. Shocker, it floods. So they try to build in water traps, levees, pumps. It still floods. They try to waterproof things, still floods. Dude, just move.
That applies in so many circumstances. People are frustrated or unhappy in their current situation, so they try so hard to make the situation different, instead of finding a different situation. The second is so much easier, and more fulfilling. Don’t let the universe strangle you. Flip it. Move like water. Find your space. Be happy.
The Opportunity Machine 