January 27, 2003 | 9:53 AM

I�ve been thinking a lot about victimization over the past week or so.

When you stop seeing yourself as a victim, some strange and wonderful things start happening. You realize how much control you have over your own life and how much power you have to change.

When you think of yourself as a victim and feel other people or circumstances control your own destiny, your behavior can�t be anything but manipulative. Instead of truly and actually relating to other people, you see them as obstacles to get around. You avoid them or leach off of them.

When you see yourself as a victim, you settle for things you don�t really want�relationships, jobs, living situations, what have you. You latch on to whatever happens to be around as opposed to actually making definitive choices. You become easily swayed by your environment, and your values grow soft and malleable depending on what is easiest or feels safest for you at the time. You say one thing and do another and can't understand why anyone is upset about it. In fact, when you see yourself as a victim, you feel so helpless and powerless that you cannot imagine your actions having much affect on anyone else, and thus you treat people who care about you poorly by taking them for granted or using them.

When you consider yourself a victim, you wind up sitting around and waiting for life to happen rather than making anything happen yourself. You waste away. Grow complacent. And lose out.

We are for the most part, the sum of our own actions and choices. Things might happen to us but it is up to each individual how we deal with our circumstances and we have so much power over our own lives. So much.

In the last week I�ve learned that things are far more simple in certain ways than I thought they were. Don�t like your job? Quit and get a different job. Tired of being treated like shit by friends and lovers? Don�t hang around those people anymore and find other people to be with. Hate the winter so much it drives you crazy? Move to some place warmer. If you don�t care enough to do any of the above, re-assess the situation and celebrate what you do have rather than what you don�t. And ask yourself why you don't care enough to change.

People who are victims wind up some place rather than actually going anywhere. If you feel powerless, you accept whatever comes your way and bleed it dry until you can't suck off it anymore. Then you can find something or someone else to suck off of. Everything in your life becomes a distraction rather than a real and viable experience.

The trick is being able to see how responsible you are for your own fate and still have empathy and compassion for other people�not everyone is where you are. Everyone�s circumstances are different and we have to honor each other�s individual experiences.

This is what real love is about. This is what builds trust. This is what precedes growth. But being involved with a person who's a victim, and cannot or does not want to change is a big fat fucking waste of time. I should know because I used to be a victim. And now I'm not anymore.

That is my inspirational speech for the day. Carry on.