Arthur Brooks

Marty Seligman, he created a whole body of research on something called learned helplessness.

Now, learned helplessness occurs when you feel like nothing that you can do can make anything better because everything is out of your control or nearly because of the actions of other people.

that kind of are conspiring against you.

And he said that this is a huge predictor of depression, a huge predictor of anxiety.

And by the way, it makes it so people can't ever solve problems.

Even if they're not the cause of the problems, they have no possibility of solving these problems, which is

really, really unproductive.

He's shown this with laboratory animals.

He showed it with people.

And, you know, people get just sort of depressed mood and in a sort of permanent state.

Learned helplessness is horrible.

And it comes because you figure there's nothing you can do because things are out of your control or merely because it's

somebody else's fault.

Scholars have shown that people with a weak capacity for emotional self-regulation tend to blame others for their poor choices.

Now, I'm not going to say that everything is your fault if something's wrong in your life.

Sometimes, I mean, there is injustice, there is discrimination.

I completely have got it.

But the idea of looking for culpability in other people and outside your control is usually the worst way to look at things, at least as the first course of action.

Fifth, here's the best part.

That's why you're here in the show is reframing your imperfections and others, not as failings, but as puzzles.