{"id":2988,"date":"2023-09-15T07:37:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2988"},"modified":"2023-09-15T07:44:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T11:44:15","slug":"helpless-no-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/15\/helpless-no-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Helpless No Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A few minutes after I hit Send on yesterday\u2019s reflection \u2013 the one concerning sports mascots, which included the point that no major school\u2019s team is represented by sheep \u2013 I myself was taken to school by several readers. \u00a0

The \u201cDirtbags\u201d are the mascot of Cal State Long Beach, not Cal State Fullerton (which I now know to be the Titans).\u00a0 Likewise, my friend Rich McDermott of Colorado reminded me that the Colorado State University Rams are actually bighorn sheep \u2013 and those who compete for nearby Fort Collins High School are known as the Lambkins (although the football players prefer to be addressed as the Black Sheep).\u00a0

Thanks to everyone for keeping me on the straight and narrow.\u00a0 What can I say?\u00a0 I feel sheepish.\u00a0<\/em>


To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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One of life\u2019s most dispiriting mindsets is the deeply felt conviction that we are powerless to affect the direction of our own lives.\u00a0
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Psychologists call it \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d\u00a0
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We\u2019ve just passed the 60th<\/sup> anniversary of a breakthrough experiment that shed a great deal of light on this phenomenon.\u00a0
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Researchers compelled a number of penned-up dogs to hear a particular tone, immediately after which they received an electric shock.\u00a0 The intent was that the dogs would associate the shock with the tone.\u00a0 After a while the dogs were placed in another pen, one which they could easily escape if they simply hopped over a wall.\u00a0 The experimenters wanted to see what would happen if they sounded the tone.\u00a0 They presumed that the dogs, which now expected a jolt of electricity, would do everything they could to run away.
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Instead, the dogs did just the opposite.\u00a0 They laid down in their pens and whimpered, waiting for the inevitable shock.\u00a0 Even though the dogs were one jump away from safety, they had concluded that they were helpless victims.\u00a0 There was nothing they could do to change their condition.\u00a0
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The discovery of this \u201clearned helplessness\u201d led to a significant amount of research into the nature of depression and fear in human beings.\u00a0
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Many of us have falsely concluded, for one reason or another, that we are helpless \u2013 that the future is never going to be different from the past.\u00a0 We are going to experience the same old pain, and there is nothing we can do about it.
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In her book Generations<\/em>, Jean Twenge notes that this mindset seems to have settled on many of those in Gen Z, Americans born between 1995 and 2012.
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A majority of Gen Z teens agree with the statements, \u201cPeople like me don\u2019t have much of a chance to be successful in life,\u201d and, \u201cEvery time I try to get ahead, something or somebody stops me.\u201d
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What\u2019s puzzling is that this group feels deeply disappointed that women don\u2019t seem to have the same opportunities to earn college degrees as men \u2013 even though females have earned more four-year degrees than males since 1982, a trend that continues to accelerate.\u00a0 Twenge observes, \u201cAs more and more women were walking across the stage getting their bachelor\u2019s degrees, more and more teen girls believed that the cards were stacked against them in getting a college education.\u201d\u00a0
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The mindset of disillusionment, in other words, often leads us to overlook the facts.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Learned helplessness is related to the notion of \u201cexternal locus of control.\u201d\u00a0 If I think that my life comes down to sheer luck or to what powerful people have decided to do to me \u2013 in other words, if I think that my fate is being determined out there<\/em> somewhere, and not by my own choices \u2013 then I have an external locus of control.
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And my life is probably going to feel miserable.\u00a0 \u00a0
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It\u2019s no surprise that hopelessness tends to swamp people who have very little control over their lives \u2013 prisoners of war, for instance, and those interred in concentration camps.
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But there are remarkable exceptions.\u00a0 Those who survive such settings tend be the prisoners who believe they can still make choices, and still have good reasons to stay alive.\u00a0 Even if they have little to no power to influence their food, accommodations, or treatment, they retain the freedom to choose how they will respond.
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And that freedom can be transforming.
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Psychologist Julius Segal has documented what happens when residents of nursing homes are presented with a spectrum of choices.\u00a0 If a resident is free to decide when (or if) to see a movie, or how to arrange their own room, their spirits are strengthened.\u00a0 According to Segal, they are also less likely to die.\u00a0
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What\u2019s the opposite of learned helplessness?
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It\u2019s learned trust<\/em>. \u00a0
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On the pages of Scripture, David is a prime example of someone who learns from experience that he isn\u2019t helpless, even in the face of long odds.\u00a0 Specifically, he learns that God will always be his help. \u00a0He \u00a0writes, in one of the psalms attributed to him, \u201cYou Lord, keep my lamp burning.\u00a0 My God turns my darkness into light.\u00a0 With your help I can advance against a troop.\u00a0 With my God I can scale a wall!\u201d (Psalm 18:28-29).
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It may be, like those dogs in the lab experiments, that we have associated certain circumstances with our own helplessness for so long that we can\u2019t imagine feeling happy or free again.
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But God beckons us to trust him.\u00a0
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God is bigger than whatever we\u2019re facing.\u00a0 God is bigger than our dumbest decisions.\u00a0 God is bigger than our failures. \u00a0God is bigger than depression and loneliness.\u00a0 God is bigger than our fear that all is lost.\u00a0
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And because he\u2019s in charge of the cosmos, he\u2019s the One who can set us free to live in hope.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few minutes after I hit Send on yesterday\u2019s reflection \u2013 the one concerning sports mascots, which included the point that no major school\u2019s team is represented by sheep \u2013 I myself was taken to school by several readers. \u00a0 The \u201cDirtbags\u201d are the mascot of Cal State Long Beach, not Cal State Fullerton (which I now know to be… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[141],"class_list":["post-2988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2992,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988\/revisions\/2992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}