Go Right and You'll Never Go Wrong

Don’t look outside yourself for happiness.

This is perhaps the most important rule of all, and if you really get this rule, all the rest of them will fall into place. What I’m talking about here is called an internal locus of control in psychiatry. I don’t know why psychiatrists can’t just call things what they are, so I’ll translate “internal locus of control”. It basically means you take responsibility for the things you do and the things you don’t do.

 Each of us has a certain way of responding to life and what life does to us. We either think, “Oh man!  I can’t believe that happened to me.”  Or, “What can I do differently to keep that from happening again”.

The person who can’t believe what happened to them is a victim. They live life waiting to see what will happen next. When something bad happens, it was supposed to happen that way. When something good happens, it was just luck.

The person who wonders what he could have done differently is a person who works from an internal locus of control. He doesn’t see life as something that happens to him, he sees life as something he creates. When something bad happens, he sees it as a learning tool, a way not to do something the next time. When something good happens, he sees it as the inevitable result of hard work.

This applies to emotions as well. So many people out there are looking for happiness to happen to them while a select few are out there making their own happiness. If you require the perfect meal, the perfect house, the perfect job, or the perfect mate to make you happy, then you are a victim. You are subject to things outside of your control to make you happy; therefore, happiness will be capricious at best. But if you truly believe that happiness comes from personal choice, something you decide and defend against the onslaught of life, then you can be truly happy. I’m talking about the kind of happiness that won’t fall apart easily because it’s not dependent on things you can’t control.

To be honest, there will always be things out of your control that will affect your life and the lives of those you love. But here’s the thing: You can’t do anything about that stuff, so why let it control you? I think Stephen King said it best in his short story “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”. Mr. King wrote: “It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying.” The victim is dying; he can only react to his circumstances and try to survive. The person who operates with an internal locus of control is living. He does everything he can to create the life he wants, and lets the rest go.

The choice is, and will always be, yours.

Godspeed.