This is an excerpt from a book named “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown.
If we become overwhelmed by our tasks, then we lose our ability to make choices for ourselves.
Do you tend to say “I have to” rather than “I choose to”? If so, then you are following the non-essential path.
So many of us lose control of our ability to choose through learned helplessness, that is, becoming so used to the feeling of being overwhelmed that we approach our lives with passivity.
To explain this a bit more, here’s an example:
The term learned helplessness originates from experiments on dogs. In the experiments, the dogs were given electric shocks. Some of them were given a lever that would stop the shocks, others received a similar lever which had no effect and the last group received no shocks at all.
Later, the dogs from all groups were put together in a huge box divided in two: one half administered shocks and the other emitted none. All the dogs from the earlier experiment who had the chance to stop the shock or had experienced no shock at all ran to the shock-free side. The ones whose levers were powerless, however, stayed in the shock zone and did not adapt.
In other words, they had learned to be helpless.
If we surrender our power to choose, we essentially give others permission to choose for us. When people think that their efforts are futile, they tend to respond in two ways:
They either give up completely or become overly active, accepting every opportunity presented to them. At first, their activity might indicate that they have not developed learned helplessness. However, these people aren’t actually exercising their power to choose the opportunity which is best for them. They simply do everything.
The ones who offer the possible choices, on the other hand, are the ones who hold the real power.
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