What is My Destiny?
Destiny is a challenging topic that has been considered through the ages in culture, religion, and societies. We hear the word used in many ways; “destined for greatness”,” destined to win”, and “discover your destiny or purpose.” While the concept of being destined or pre-determined to become something or someone is intriguing and exciting for some, I want to explore the concept from a darker, more pervasive view that I continue to find in many people I encounter today.
Destined to Fail?
The concept of destiny is sometimes misplaced in the way we grow up or the circumstances that we find ourselves in as life moves along. The hard reality of destiny is not that we spend our time looking for our future greatness, but get bogged down in believing a difficult message that the destiny that we are meant to inherit is that of the failure that we have grown up in…destined to fail, lose, continue to be mediocre, or just get by.
Learned Helplessness
World-renowned psychologist Martin Seligman studied a concept known as “Learned Helplessness.” This can be defined as “a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression”. This concept basically reveals that many of us have learned to accept that the world we experience in our daily lives is a result of our past conditioning and is wired into our destiny. For example, if a young man grows up in a family where sickness, defeat, poverty, divorce, abuse, bad luck, racism, pain, or any other form of bad experiences reside, he may believe that his future is and will be biased toward more of these experiences.
Studies show that people repeat these bad experiences as they grow and even “expect” them to occur as their future unfolds. While the first part of this equation is bad enough, the other half, an even darker side, gets worse. Many people not only expect that life will not get better, but make choices and decisions that actually invite more of these negative experiences to occur. I have a former student who while attending one my classes mysteriously dropped out midway through the term. When I tracked him down a few months later and asked why he dropped out he stated “I am just not college material…my family has always been working class, not upper class, so who am I kidding?” He allowed a perception of his past to influence the condition of his future. He chose to allow his learned helplessness to rob him of a chance to change his professional pathway. The tragedy here is that he was carrying a B average in the class and well on his way to successfully completing his goal.
You Have a Choice!
So what makes the difference in one finds the courage to change direction and not continue to believe the unspoken lie that we are destined to repeat bad history? Choice! Where is the rule that says because you are from a certain place or come from a certain background that you are destined to fail? The rule exists only in the mind of the individual. Consider this example:
Dr. Seligman proved this concept with a group of dogs placed in cages with the bottoms wired for an electric current to be applied. Half of the dogs were given a button to touch in the cage to stop the flow of the current while the other half were not. After the current was applied, the dogs with the buttons relieved the pain of the shock while the other half cowered in the corner.
For the second half of the experiment, the same dogs were all placed in similarly wired cages with a low side on the cage allowing the dogs the option to escape. When the current was applied, the dogs from the previous cages with the buttons promptly jumped out of the cage. The other half of dogs who were in the cages with no buttons once again cowered in the corner when the current was applied totally ignoring the fact that they could leave the new cage. Why? Learned helplessness.
Too often this same behavior is seen in humans every day. There is this learned perception that there is no way out of the cage and the only way to cope is to just cower in the corner. There are actually many ways out the cage. Here is the exciting part of the dog experiment. The dogs with learned helplessness were taught by their handler how to exit the cage when the current was applied. After a few times, the dogs finally left the cages on their own.
Leave Your Cage
The same holds true for us. We can learn to leave our cage. We can change our course and move forward from the false perceptions we may have inherited or developed along the way. It may require help and guidance, and it may take a few times to retrain our mindset. Nevertheless, we are not destined to remain in the cage. We can change, shift, learn and experience the life we want to live. Will it be easy? Of course not! But neither is remaining in the cage.
Destiny is a matter of choice. Your professional destiny is a matter of the education and skills you choose to adopt. Your spiritual destiny is a matter of what deity you choose to serve. Your personal destiny is a matter of what behaviors you choose to engage in. Destiny is a matter of choice and the future you want to experience begins with getting out of the cage of your learned helplessness and choosing a new path.
Tom Darling