Hello, good morning, and how are everyone’s existential crises going today? Have you dyed your hair any bright colors as of recently? Cut yourself a shag? Booked any trips for the summer? Reworked your 10-year life plan? Stared at the ceiling for 12 hours straight? I can keep going, but you get the point.
Do you ever look back at where you were a year ago and realize how much your life has changed and then realize that life is totally unpredictable despite the fact that almost everything is a direct cause of some choice that was made for or by you, and a year from today your life could, and probably will be, entirely different from what you’re experiencing now? If you followed along with that, congratulations. I thought about it and wrote it and am still not sure I understand it myself.
Basically what I am trying to convey is that having an external and internal locus of control comes with great confusion. Scratch that, all of life comes with great confusion but so much of how you view this confusion is from our personal locus of control.
For those who are wondering what the heck they are reading, a locus of control is the degree to which people believe they have control over their lives. A person can conceptualize themselves as having an “internal locus of control,” a belief that one can control their own life, or an “external locus of control,” a belief that life is controlled by outside factors.
If you have an internal locus of control, you may believe that there is no such thing as fate or destiny, that luck has little to do with success, if you work hard and commit yourself to a goal you can achieve it and that people receive what they deserve in life. If you have an external locus of control, you may believe that life is a game of chance, things occur outside of one’s control and that individuals have little influence over the world.
Many other scenarios fall into the categories of external or internal locus of control, those are only a few. Additionally, having an internal versus an external locus of control isn’t good or bad; these are just two different belief systems. You also don’t have to choose one or the other, because first of all being decisive is for chumps and second of all fate and destiny are real and also fake so how could one decide?
The dilemma between knowing that there are steps one is able to take in order to achieve one’s goals and what they want in life, paired with knowing that anything is apt to change in seconds without one’s choice, is enough to drive any person mental. As I see it for myself, nothing I do matters and because nothing matters, I can do anything, which leads to everything mattering. Then it all circles back the other way around! See the dilemma?
Did I make any sense at all in the last few hundred words you just read? Personally, I have no idea. These are just some random words specifically placed in the order they are so that one may read them and also go through this existential locus of control crisis with me. Or maybe they won’t, that’s totally up to fate.