We live in a pretty amazing world. Right now, I have on my desk several devices with which I can communicate with people nearly anywhere on the globe. I use one of those devices every day for several hours at a time, both for communication with others and to create things. The money I earn doing that is automatically put into my checking account, and I can spend it on groceries with a little plastic card that I carry in my wallet. I can even order food online and have it delivered directly to my house, for a very modest charge, that is nearly always a better choice (price-wise, not nutrition-wise) than driving down the street to get the food (at least for pizza, grocery delivery isn’t quite here yet, but will be). I could, right now (well, if I had renewed my passport) be in India, Iceland, or Argentina within a day. In short, we live in truly amazing times and are capable of things our ancestors would have never dreamed of.

I’ve been noticing something in my network of friends and family of late. Really, it’s been there all along, but I suppose it started really jumping out at me a few months ago. Like most things that really jump out at me, I notice it more when other people do the same crap I do, so this is not presented as an indictment of them. I’ve noticed a remarkable difference between people who really excel at moving their lives forward and reaching their goals and those who trudge along more slowly, or fail altogether. While lots of things can impede success, from dumb luck, to bad timing, to rashness, or lack of skills, one thing I consistently see out of people who aren’t doing well when they should be (ie., in the absence of those other things) is that a large number of them seem to describe their situations, both to others and themselves, in terms of their own powerlessness.