The victim mentality and the problem with negative thinking

What is the victim mentality?

The victim mentality is to adopt the psychology and worldview which internalizes the idea that the "self" is a victim of circumstances. This victim mentality puts the blame on others in familiar themes such as grand conspiracies, involving elites, or stronger more powerful individuals who interfere in their lives. First I will say that my post isn't about debating whether or not people are victims of powerful people or groups of elites. In fact, let's assume this is all true, and then the question becomes what good is adopting the victim mentality for dealing with that?

The person who accepts the victim mentality will see that there are others in their field more naturally talented than them, more experienced than them, and see that it's all just a grand conspiracy to keep them down. That biggest problem with this thinking is that it tricks people into believing the circumstances that people are born into will ultimately define their lives and limit the possibilities.

Life is about overcoming disadvantages and leveraging advantages

All people are born with disadvantages and advantages. Some people are born winners of a sort of lottery where they are given the ideal circumstances. This could be environment such that they are born into a good family, in a safe nurturing environment, without any major traumatic experiences in childhood. These are all advantages some children are born having whether they recognize them or not.

These advantages of course go beyond just location of birth, family environment, but include being born into a race which may receive less negative stereotypes than some other races in that location, or being born into a gender which isn't being oppressed at that time and location. All of these these are just the lottery of birth which no one has any control over.

The person who accepts the victim mentality may look at the fact that they were born into a poor family, in a less than safe environment, and just on that alone not counting other possible disadvantages like being born into a negatively stereotyped race or oppressed gender, will blame society for everything that goes wrong in their life. If they did bad in school it's because the school is racist, sexist, etc. If they aren't being paid as much it's because they don't have the social connections that the other kids who grew up in the nicer safer environments got to have. Under this mentality, there will always be someone stronger, someone more advantaged, who can be blamed.

The alternative to the victim mentality

The alternative to looking at what is wrong with the world and searching for people to blame, is to look look instead at what you can do to improve your situation. Even people born into terrible circumstances, with all sorts of disadvantages, may still have a few advantages which they can leverage to escape those terrible circumstances. While the victim mentality focuses on what the individual does not have and what other individuals are doing (often in vast conspiracies) to hinder their efforts, the opposite mentality is to search for the opportunities that do exist, the individuals who actually do reach out, the advantages the individual was born with despite whatever disadvantages.

Advantages can be leveraged and most people will do this

If someone is born taller than others then why wouldn't they leverage their height? This height could get them into the NBA, it could get give them the opportunity to do certain professions that shorter people have a difficult time ever doing. On the other hand if someone is born short then they too can do professions which tall persons can't do as well, such as horse back riding, or power lifting. Leveraging your natural traits is the key to snapping out of the victim mentality and figuring out how to change your circumstances. Many traits which others in society see as weaknesses may actually be strengths in the right context but the victim mentality keeps many from realizing this.

The Arnold Schwarzenegger example

I use Arnold as an example because he is a person who has inspired me. If we look at the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger and all he accomplished, he had a natural talent (genetics) for building muscle. He decided to become a bodybuilder and take it as far as he could take it. He didn't go into the gym and see people bigger than him, who trained longer than him, and think he should just quit. Instead he had the confidence, the self esteem, the self belief, the drive, to want to be the greatest bodybuilder who ever lived.

So he went to the gym consistently every day, for years. Of course he used whatever drugs and or treatment his peers were using in those days. He worked on his poses, he worked on his discipline, and he won Mr Olympia after losing. He lost to someone more naturally gifted than he was but he didn't quit, he came back and won, again and again and again.

So what is the point? We have an example of a person who leveraged their natural advantages to build their on their advantages and resolve the disadvantages. By going from bodybuilding to acting, he leveraged his success in body building to build on that to be successful in acting. He also was very financially literate, he made lots of money running businesses as well. Arnold had to do all of this as a foreigner who spoke broken English, without the social connections either.

Some will say Arnold had certain advantages, he was born into a European bloodline which means less negative stereotyping at least in the United States during those times, and he was born male so it worked in his favor later on when he had the opportunity to become an action star. Does this mean non-European couldn't do the same thing?

The Bruce Lee example

Bruce Lee also came to the United States after having lived his childhood in China, also had to master the English language, and accomplished similar miraculous feats. In Bruce Lee's case he had to deal with workplace discrimination which made being an action star almost impossible during the era he was in hollywood. Bruce Lee like Arnold Schwarzenegger levered his advantages and used those advantages to resolve his disadvantages. Bruce Lee didn't have the genetics to build big muscles so he couldn't become a bodybuilder, but he had acting talent, he was very fast, and he was extremely disciplined.

Conclusion

There are probably many other examples but the point is that in order to be great in this life then it's more about what you're doing, or not doing, than what others aren't doing or are doing. This is to say that even if it is true that others are sabotaging your success, that others are sexist, racist, classist, you may even be officially blackballed, whatever the circumstances are, the challenge is to overcome these circumstances. In an unfair world, internalizing the victim mindset doesn't change the circumstances and only reduces confidence. That confidence is important as it is what drives a person to try to be the best they can be at whatever it is they are trying to become.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality