Ever heard of "Locus of control"?

I did my doctoral training back in the late seventies and early '80s. Back then the term "cognitive therapy" was becoming popular. Before that it was called learning. So I did my doctoral work on learning.

There was a popular term back then called "locus of control". Maybe it's still popular, I don't know. It was put forth as a theory of depression and it was pretty interesting. It asked the basic question "does the world act on you or do you act on the world?" Does the control of your life rest inside you or outside you? It was suggested, with some scientific back up, the people that were depressed felt like there were forces outside of them controlling them and they couldn't do anything about it. The lack of control led the feelings of depression.

That's pretty interesting, and probably pretty true. We humans are sort of wired to look to some central authority, external source of knowledge for answers to our situations. We are kind of wired or taught to think of ourselves as out of control. Whenever I think of this I get the image of the people of the Land of Oz racing to the great man to get answers to why the wicked witch is flying around drawing "Dorothy" in the sky above the castle. Always looking for someone to give us the answer for things we don't understand.

Stop running to the great and wonderful Oz. Spend a few moments to look inside, and decide what you think is true. And go with that. You may be wrong, you will probably be wrong, but it will be your thought. And owning that thought has a certain power to it. Power you deserve to have.

Ignore all the Dorothy's in the sky over your head. Look inside and be strong.