Yes. You’re a victim.

You were raped. Or molested. Or abandoned by your parents. Or you had substance abusing parents. Or you were cheated on. Or you’re fat. Maybe you’re gay. Or trans. You are bullied. Addicted to drugs or alcohol — or even lab-created foods. Maybe robbed at gunpoint. Your child was kidnapped.

Society has built around us a framework for a culture of victimhood…

It has twisted us into identifying with our traumas. To do what we can to use it to capitalize off of others. To be a bigger, more worse off victim than everyone else.

This framework, however, isn’t helpful to us. It more resembles a gallows to us falling short of our abilities than a constructed safe space.

Everyone alive and dead has every reason to exclaim from mountaintops that they are victims. And it would be more than fair to.

Stop abusing these crutches and do your best to pick yourself up, walking on your own “two legs” in life!

Are some days hard or triggering? Yes, absolutely…

But, you cannot allow traumas, injuries, or anything else to become an excuse.

Just do your best to live virtuously each day…just a little better than yesterday!

Follow for daily philosophical meditations.

These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”