Post by samiam on May 30, 2009 13:15:08 GMT -5
Stop.
Stop it.
I said stop it!
If you keep doing that I'm going to reach through your damn computer and bitch-slap you!
By now you're probably wondering what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about blame.
You right now are blaming the bad things in your life on others. You are saying that your problems aren't your fault. There's even a psychological term for this: Attribution. People tend to think that the good things that happen to them are a result of their ability, which is an internal attribution, and they tend to think that the bad things that happen to them are a result of their environment, which is external attribution.
We go through life being constantly inundated with messages and images telling us one thing- You are not in charge of your life. Everything around us leads us to believe that bad things just happen to us, and we have to learn to deal with them.
That's bullshit
What I'm about to tell you is tough to accept, and may seem depressing and painful at first glance, but once you learn to live with it, you will be free.
Every bad thing that has ever happened to you is a result of you not doing something to change it, or your failure to accept it as something you cannot change.
I know, you're thinking "What the hell? He's telling me that all this shit in my life is my fault? There's no way!" The truth hurts sometimes. Now, of course there are some things that you can't change, like the death of someone close to you. You can't undo it, so you have to learn to live with it and move on. Learning to know the difference between what you can and can't do is crucial.
It's difficult in the beginning to stop blaming others for your problems, but if you make a real effort you can begin to take the blame yourself. Now, you might be wondering "Why the hell would I want to do that? That sounds like it would just make me feel depressed all the time."
Here's the thing. If you accept the idea that the problems in your life are your fault, then you are also accepting the idea that you can prevent/fix them. Most people know the Spiderman quote, "With great power comes great responsibility." But if you flip the quote, you understand the power you have over your life.
"With great responsibility comes great power."
You live under the impression that you are powerless in so many areas of your life, and that is simply not true. When you think that you can't change something, you don't even bother to try. Back to psychology, this is known as learned helplessness, and is a scientifically proven part of our behavior. In experiments on learned helplessness, animals were put in boxes that would periodically shock them until they escaped from the boxes. Some of the animals could escape by manipulating parts of their box, but other animals had no way out. In the second half of the experiment the animals were all put in a similar situation, and guess what? 0% of the animals who had no way out before even attempted to escape. Once we are convinced that we cannot change our environment we give up.
Never give up
You have the responsibility, you have the power. Use it.
Stop it.
I said stop it!
If you keep doing that I'm going to reach through your damn computer and bitch-slap you!
By now you're probably wondering what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about blame.
You right now are blaming the bad things in your life on others. You are saying that your problems aren't your fault. There's even a psychological term for this: Attribution. People tend to think that the good things that happen to them are a result of their ability, which is an internal attribution, and they tend to think that the bad things that happen to them are a result of their environment, which is external attribution.
We go through life being constantly inundated with messages and images telling us one thing- You are not in charge of your life. Everything around us leads us to believe that bad things just happen to us, and we have to learn to deal with them.
That's bullshit
What I'm about to tell you is tough to accept, and may seem depressing and painful at first glance, but once you learn to live with it, you will be free.
Every bad thing that has ever happened to you is a result of you not doing something to change it, or your failure to accept it as something you cannot change.
I know, you're thinking "What the hell? He's telling me that all this shit in my life is my fault? There's no way!" The truth hurts sometimes. Now, of course there are some things that you can't change, like the death of someone close to you. You can't undo it, so you have to learn to live with it and move on. Learning to know the difference between what you can and can't do is crucial.
It's difficult in the beginning to stop blaming others for your problems, but if you make a real effort you can begin to take the blame yourself. Now, you might be wondering "Why the hell would I want to do that? That sounds like it would just make me feel depressed all the time."
Here's the thing. If you accept the idea that the problems in your life are your fault, then you are also accepting the idea that you can prevent/fix them. Most people know the Spiderman quote, "With great power comes great responsibility." But if you flip the quote, you understand the power you have over your life.
"With great responsibility comes great power."
You live under the impression that you are powerless in so many areas of your life, and that is simply not true. When you think that you can't change something, you don't even bother to try. Back to psychology, this is known as learned helplessness, and is a scientifically proven part of our behavior. In experiments on learned helplessness, animals were put in boxes that would periodically shock them until they escaped from the boxes. Some of the animals could escape by manipulating parts of their box, but other animals had no way out. In the second half of the experiment the animals were all put in a similar situation, and guess what? 0% of the animals who had no way out before even attempted to escape. Once we are convinced that we cannot change our environment we give up.
Never give up
You have the responsibility, you have the power. Use it.
