I reconnected with an old acquaintance a few months ago, who I hadn’t seen since the previous year. We discussed a wide range of topics, such as our interests, relationships, and careers. My acquaintance informed me that he had applied for a promotion but had been rejected because his work had grown monotonous and uninteresting. He also told me that he had recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend, which indicated that his personal life wasn’t doing well. “I’m having a run of bad luck,” he said in response to my question about why things seemed to be going wrong at work and at home. His response astonished me since I had never considered him to be someone who believed that fate was in charge of his life. Give up thinking that your life is determined by fate, luck, magic, evil individuals, supernatural powers, or anything else external to you. This is known as the “external locus of control” in psychology. People who hold this form of fatalism feel unable to significantly alter their lives on a personal level. As a result, individuals either give up and hope for the best, concentrate on using superstitions of all types to try to alter their luck, or simply accept whatever happens and lament that it doesn’t live up to their expectations. Most prosperous individuals hold the opposite opinion. An “internal locus of control” exists in them. Even when unplanned occurrences arise, they nevertheless maintain the belief that they have a significant influence over the course of their lives.
