Also known as having a strong internal locus of control.
There are two kinds of people when we’re talking about locus of control. There are some shades of gray and some circumstances that throw a wrench into the works sometimes,
When I was younger, I was surrounded by losers. A lot of this was due to circumstances beyond my control; a kid doesn’t have much say in where his parents decide to move. Not all, but a good part. While the specific peer pool was determined for me, my specific peers weren’t. And who I listened to was ultimately my choice. Due to some bad decisions, a lot of my friends were clods. Not all, but a lot of them.
Later, those old habits led me down the same path over and over until I fixed things. I wasted a chunk of my life surrounded by some of the worst losers you can imagine. Looked some of them up a while back. They haven’t changed one bit. Every single one of them is still wallowing in worthlessness, failing at life, and blaming everyone but themselves for their refusal to do a single thing to improve their situation.
I don’t talk to those former friends. The few people I keep in touch with from back then have their acts together and made something of themselves.
What most of these losers had in common was a belief that they were mostly just along for the ride in their lives. They wouldn’t phrase it that way, but that’s the short version. To someone like this – which included me for a long time – the quality of your life is largely determined by the universe, other people, luck, whatever. Not only that but attempts to improve your situation beyond “your place” are actively avoided. And that is a toxic way to live. You end up missing out on so much because you honestly believe things happen because they’re supposed to or don’t because they’re not.
They also tend to be really big on predestination or luck. Some of them take it to the extreme that they honestly think everything in life is predetermined and attempting to change things is either futile or actively provoking the powers that be. These are the kind of people who tell me April dying of a horrific, incredibly painful disease was “all part of god’s plan,” so it’s all good. If you want to see my capacity for extremely colorful language, run that one by me when you’re out of arm’s reach. Or if you want a demonstration of some of the skills I picked up at the bodyguard company try it where I can get my hands on you.
Others simply ascribe anything that happens without an incredibly obvious chain of events to luck. Even when it’s clearly their own doing, they claim it’s all luck. It makes sense if you’re a loser though – luck means never having to take responsibility for anything. Sure, you lose credit for the successes you say were because of luck, but you don’t have to admit any wrongdoing ever. Got fired? Bad luck. Knocked up nine women and the child support is keeping you in poverty? Couldn’t possibly be your own bad decisions. Blame bad luck. Five DWIs? Bad luck and the cops are out to get you.
Yeah, no.
When you take responsibility for how your life goes, you lose the ability to blame anyone but yourself unless there’s strong evidence to the contrary. If someone walks up to me and hits me with a stick, I don’t blame myself. It isn’t as easy, but it’s a lot more satisfying. That success wasn’t luck or some divine plan, it was your own hard work. But when you screw up, you can’t blame the gods or random misfortune.
Here’s the interesting thing about higher education. Unlike high school where a lot of the teachers and administrators are petty tyrants who will screw you over simply because they don’t like you, it’s all up to you after high school. You can screw around and do the bare minimum, and your report card will reflect that. Or you can buckle down, learn the material, and do well, and your report card will reflect that too. Which can help when you’re looking for your first few jobs after skool. More importantly, those habits will show in your interviews and later your references.
Once you realize it’s all on you – barring some bizarre and rare circumstance like winning the lottery or a horrific accident that leaves you permanently disabled – it changes everything. Cheap Trick nailed it with their song “Reach Out.”
I wanted a better lifestyle. So I went back to skool and improved my employment prospects. Then I worked my butt off to go from good prospects to good reality. I didn’t suck up to get promotions I didn’t deserve (and could be taken from me the instant I stopped), I put forth the effort and demonstrated extreme competence. My annual reviews are pretty short because there isn’t much to be said when you do good work and lots of it.
I wanted to make video games since I was a little kid. I remember spending days and days drawing pictures of things I’d include in these hypothetical games. Back then, I was surrounded by people who repeatedly assured me “you’re not going to design video games. That’s for college people. Be realistic. People like us work in factories.” Then when I was in tech skool I got bored enough to actually give it a try. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the skills to do a lot of what I needed to, so it kind of just rotted on the vine. So I went online and found some classes. Started taking them, and now I have a few demos up online with some much bigger projects underway.
One small part of this also includes not worrying about what people I don’t care about think of me or what I’m doing. I’ve known far too many people who think you aren’t doing anything unless you constantly tell people what you’re up to. And you know what? They don’t accomplish much. Largely because all that time they spend making sure people who don’t matter see them accomplishing something tiny isn’t being spent accomplishing something of note.
It gets even sadder when people tell me “you need to work on your rep. X and Y think you’re a slacker.” Because I really care what X, a lowlife criminal who can only have a gun because of identity theft and misses no opportunity to try to be a petty bully to feel better about himself thinks. Or Y, who has spent her entire life trying to scam anyone she can out of anything she can, including multiple disability scams. Call me strange, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what losers like them think, much less worrying about my reputation among them.
I prefer to let my actions and accomplishments speak for themselves.