A Culture of Victims and How to Regain Power in Your Life

What is a Victim?

When you hear the word "victim" what comes to your mind first? For a long time, I would think about someone who had a tragic event happen in their lives such as abuse or neglect and I would place the label of victim on them. I saw them as someone who may be helpless in their situation; possibly barley coping with their negative circumstance or maybe scraping by with a fake smile while dealing with their situation through behind doors depression or isolation. Another thought I would have when I pictured victims were the people that were always telling me about their victimization. People looking for attention or sympathy from me for the events that happened to them or the life situations that they did not choose to be in but were forced upon them by others. I'm sure you have seen or heard victims like this before, or maybe you are one of them.

What I never thought of though, is how living in victimization is one of the most suppressing and powerless ways to live your life.

Now, don't confuse what I'm saying here; I say living in victimization, not being a victim, for these are two separate ideas. We are all victims in one way or another, both by our own choices and by the choices of others. Whether you are a victim of your own careless decisions like getting drunk and making a bad decision, or the decisions of others like growing up in a poor household with neglectful parents, you have a choice to either sit in your victimization and live powerlessly, or take a hold of your life like it is your responsibility and succeed!

Self-Control and the Power of Owning Personal Choices

"If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim." -Richard Bach

Control is power; controlling other people takes away their personal power and makes them unable to be free. This is the case in any situation where there is no choice given to someone. That is why self-control is the only control that we should partake in, never controlling others, but giving them options so they can be empowered to make decisions for themselves. This can be simply shown in two different scenarios: In the first one, a parent tells their teenager to go to bed. The parent then immediately grabs the teen and drags them into their room, turns the light off, and shuts the door. In the second scenario, a parent tells their teenager to go to bed, but this time they say "You can either go to bed now because it is your bed time, or you will lose your phone for a week." The teen thinks it over, and decides to go to bed because they would rather keep their phone.

In the first scenario, the teen had no choice. They were forced into their situation and put into their bed. They were denied control over their own life and therefore, were powerless in that situation. The other teen, however, was given a choice. They were able to make the decision to go to bed or face a consequence for their behavior, and they chose the one that didn't bring instant gratification like staying up later would have brought, but the one that allowed them to use their phone for the next week.

Lets follow the decision of the second teen if they had decided to not listen to their parent and as a consequence, lost their phone. Well, it just so happened that the restaurant that teen had applied to called that week to confirm employment with them, but since they did not answer for multiple days in a row, they lost the job. Whether or not this situation is justifiable, this teen just became a victim of his or her circumstances. This frustrates the teen, and out of anger, they start blaming their parent for taking away their phone, they blame their employer for not waiting for a response longer, and they start blaming the computer company that sold them a faulty computer last week, because if they hadn't done that, then he wouldn't have needed a job in the first place.

The teen then spends the next three years of their lives sitting in a place of victim hood, feeling sorry for themselves and their situation that they can't get a job and that they got ripped off by the computer company.

You might be thinking to yourself "What the heck teen?! get off your lazy butt and go get a new job?!" to that, I would say you probably have a good idea of what it means to be empowered. If you thought to yourself "Dang, that teen had it rough and it was so unfair of mom to take away their phone. I feel sorry for them." Then you probably don't really know what it means to live a powerful life, or have never been told that you could be powerful in all your situations right NOW!

The Power of Owning Your Situation

Ownership and authority are linked. We need to own our own situations in order to have full authority over them; this is the only way we will see a change in our lives. When you put ownership of your problems on other people, you give that person authority in that area and authority in your life. If the teen above said to himself, "I made the decision to go to bed late, therefore I lost my phone and this job. I will do everything in my ability to get that job back and apologize to my parent for not respecting them" Then that teen would have taken back authority of his life and lived in power again. He would no longer be subjected to the power of his phone being taken; he would no longer be subjected to the authority of his parents discipline during that one moment in his life; he would no longer be subjected to the authority of the "No" put on him by his employer. He now has ownership of his life and will see real change happen.

This is such a minuscule and insignificant example of victim hood, but you would be surprised how often we do not take responsibility and accept self-control for our actions. When is the last time you went to work and said "ugh, I have to go to work today". Did you not accept that job? did you not choose to go there? there are labor laws preventing this.

How much more powerful would you be to say "Yes! I get to go to work today! and although it may be challenging, I am going to give it my all because after all, I am the one choosing this for my life". Wow! that's amazing! you get to live with power and authority over your job, and guess what, if you hate it, you have the power to change the work place or go to a different one.

Think about this in every aspect of your life. Whether its finances, family, friends, roommates, or any other area where you are responsible for the place you are in. You got yourself there, if it sucks, take control of your decision and change your environment or leave. If you are "stuck" it means you need to own and take authority over yourself. When you own your own life, you get authority over it and you can self-control it!

The Greater Power of Owning Your Circumstance

The harder part in these life circumstances is determining how to live your life when the circumstance you live in is not the one you chose for yourself. It is easy for someone to look at the situation they got themselves into and realize that it is their responsibility to get themselves out of it, but it is much harder for someone in a situation that someone else was the cause of to realize that it is also their responsibility to get themselves in control of that situation. We see it all the time these days. People who are victims of their parents actions or of society or maybe a poor living situation growing up. These people grow up with a disadvantage, and yes, they are victims. But once they realize that they are the victims of someone else's actions, they play the victim card for the rest of their lives and never rise up from their circumstance to bring about a better change to their lives.

“Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”

People who change the circumstances that someone else has caused for them are people who are more powerful and influential than those who merely change the circumstances that they got themselves into; these are the people who end up changing society and the world. Take for example Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His life is an example of someone who not only changed his own possible short comings, but changed the short comings and racism of generations of people before him; all because he refused to be a victim. He could have told himself his entire life that he wasn't good enough because that is what he had grown up learning and was the way he was treated. He could have sat in his victim-hood and had his friends and family feel sorry for him because really it "wasn't his fault he was in the situation he was in". This would have made him another powerless black man in that day that who was under the authority of racist white people. But no. He chose power. He chose to take a hold of the situation that was so incredibly unfair for him and grab power away from racists and reclaim the life that he wanted for himself. Because of his determination and realization that staying a victim would never get him anywhere, he was able to change the face of a country, and be recognized as one of the most powerful and influential people in modern history.

This is what I mean when I say more power is given when you take a hold of your situation that others have gotten you in. You strip the power/authority that they allowed to hold you down, and reclaim it for yourself in order to change your life. Imagine if today, we had people who were not afraid to stop playing the victim, and instead take control of their lives to make it better for themselves and the people around them. There are countless people in society these days who are quite content with sitting in victim-hood and never claiming their lives for themselves; sitting in powerless apathy and surviving off the hope that others will be sympathetic toward them and give them something because "life was unfair to them". I'm not saying some people don't need a hand up; many people, including myself, would not be in the same place today without someone else offering a hand in difficult times. What I am saying, is that if during that time when you are getting help, if you aren't looking for a way to take power over your life, then soon the sympathy will run out and people will realize the failure to respond to someones mistake in your own life is now yours as well because you refused to change anything about your situation.

Advice to Help Navigate Victims in Your Life

I hope you feel empowered to be a champion of your own life! There is no reason why we cannot take control of ourselves and live powerful and meaningful lives. This process differs for every person in every situation, but the result is the same; people being made into more powerful and influential members of their society. Whether you are the boy who lost his job because your cell phone was taken away or the woman or man who was abused from a young age, grew up in poverty, or had a horrible tragedy; you have the ability to take self-responsibility for your life and self-control your situation from now on, no excuses.

For those who struggle with people around you who play victims in their lives, here is some helpful information about victims that will help you understand their patterns.

1. Victims don't have to worry about failure. When you are a victim, if ever you do not succeed, it is not your fault, but the fault of everyone else around you. This allows victims to disassociate from reality and believe that they do not have to try during hardships because they have a fallback when they do not want to give any more effort. The people in your life who are victims can not be trusted with hard work or challenging tasks because they will fail you and they will never own up for their failure. If you have someone like this that works for you or you interact with on a regular basis, realize that you cannot entrust big problems to them; big problems are for big problem solvers, not people living in victimization.

2. Victims cannot acknowledge your success, because if a victims life is not of their own doing, then your life is also not of your own doing. Victims sit in the idea that you are the way you are because of your circumstance not because you have chosen to say yes to tackling life's challenges. If a victim were to admit your hard work to get where you are, then they would have to start taking responsibility for their own actions and that would mean giving up the victim lifestyle. It is much easier for them to dismiss your successes as chance or luck or fate.

3. Victims are good at what they do and will tear you down before attempting to build their own lives back. If you have friends or family that play the victim, don't be surprised if they are harsh to you because of the powerful person you choose to be. Victims do not like being in the presence of powerful people, because most of the time, powerful people see right through the victim facade and their power also casts a large shadow over the victims potential pity party. Try to call out these victims in your life by asking "So, what are * you * going to do about * your * situation?" Get them to see that they are the only ones who can take control of their lives. If they do not change their ways, it is probably best for you to not spend your time sharing your life with these people because they will only tear you down.

Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this Bad Larry as much as I enjoyed writing it for you all!

Comment below if you disagree with any of these ideas or if you liked this article so I can hear your opinion!