Themeattics

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

This article was one of the first I wanted to make back when I started this whole thing, but it never felt like the right time. Every week there was something more relevant or too far disjointed for a good lead in. Last week’s post about not making excuses for your own failures ended up being a perfect lead-in, so here we are. Time to hit on the opposite end of the spectrum. Something I feel is far more pernicious. And prevalent.

I was first introduced to the term Locus of Control in my high school economics class. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it’s essentially the degree to which you believe you control the outcome of your decisions versus external forces. In the former case, you have an internal locus. In the latter, an external. It’s a simple concept, but I latched onto it immediately. I couldn’t believe how much it explained. Economics, philosophy, politics – so many things, when boiled down to an individual level, revolve around this single idea.

If you’ve been reading any of my other posts, it should come as no surprise that I value a strong internal locus. My last article was a prime example of that, but you can look back at basically any of them and find the same philosophy. My reasons why are straight forward – the only person you can control is yourself. You can influence others, sure, and be influenced by them, but not controlled. Never controlled. In the end, the decision is always yours.

But enough about that, I’ve talked about it enough for now and I’m sure there will be more to come. Let’s talk external.

Everyone knows a person who leans heavily into external locus. They were late because of traffic. They missed a deadline because someone else used up their time. They can’t get ahead because leadership has it out for them.

Now, I loathe external locus, but I want to make this clear. None of those things are inherently bad excuses. We’ve probably all experienced them, or something like them, several times in our lives. The thing happening isn’t the issue, it’s how we, as a people, respond. Because these excuses will always exist and, worse, they’re easy. External locus shifts blame onto things over which we have no control. People are shitty drivers, leaving for work a few minutes earlier won’t help. Clients are too demanding, working on my time management will just leave me further behind. “The Man” keeps me in place, no amount of self-improvement can get me ahead. It allows us to be lazy. To give up on ourselves.

And, like everything else, external locus gains power over time. You become better at what you practice, and that’s no less true for casting blame. Before long, every minor hiccup is someone or something else’s fault. Then, everything is everyone’s fault. The System, and anything that’s part of it, is culpable. And, really, where the hell do you go from there? What good can possible come from it? Ruin one system and replace it with another, do you think that will cause the people with an external focus to suddenly develop an internal one? No, something else will become the victimizer and need to be destroyed.

I’m a broken record on this, I know, but it all comes down to the individual. Every time you find yourself reaching for something else to blame, ask yourself what you could have done to change the outcome. Did you practice hard enough? Did you devote enough time? Could you have done more? If you’re honest with yourself, I think you’ll find the answer to that last question is always yes.

Unpopular opinion (I’ve got a lot of ’em) – there’s nothing wrong with being disappointed in yourself. Humans fail. We aren’t perfect and never will be, and despite that we want everything. We’re bound to miss the mark, bound to feel we’re not good enough, and that’s fine. Natural. Don’t be afraid of that disappointment. Accept it, learn from it, and move on. That’s how we grow.