what am i supposed to believe. . .

I came across this website about “Locus of Control” that concerns our attitudes about what control we believe we have over our life circumstances. The definition of the term is “Your Locus of Control is based on your belief of whether your actions, or outside influences, have a greater bearing on the outcome of your actions.”Overall, I believe that my own actions have more bearing than other influences on the outcome of my actions. Because I do not hold with black-and-white thinking, I would not hold myself 100% responsible for everything that could be linked to my behaviour in a situation. If I say something sarcastic to my husband, he will be annoyed and perhaps hurt. I would consider myself 100% responsible for his negative emotional state if he had been in a good mood before my comment. If he had already been in a somewhat sour mood, then I would hold myself at least 50% responsible for his emotional state. If he then leaves the apartment and gets hit by a cyclist crossing the street, I would hold myself partially responsible for my husband’s action of leaving the apartment but not at all responsible for the carelessness of the cyclist. Perhaps the cyclist was having a bad day and was not focused on what he was doing. I would not hold myself responsible for any of his stuff or the results from any of his actions. The extent to which I hold myself responsible for the outcomes of my actions would depend on how closely related the specific outcome was to the action, and to what degree I expected the reaction. I read about “the law of 26” which states that for every action, there is one expected result and 26 unexpected ones. I would hold myself far more responsible for the expected one and less responsible for the unexpected ones. Hopefully I would learn something from those results that I did not anticipate.Your attribution style is who you hold responsible for the outcomes of your actions.If there were five separate outcomes could be linked to my specific behaviour in a particular situation, and I could have known beforehand what three of those five would be, I would hold myself 100% responsible for those three outcomes. If I later (with help from others) I was able to fully link the two other outcomes to my actions, I would also hold myself 100% responsible for those two outcomes. If another person’s reaction to my behaviour results in another set of outcomes, I consider that person mostly responsible and myself partially so as in the example above. It is important to consider all elements of a situation. Also, it is not particularly useful to cast blame even at oneself. Admitting a wrongdoing, making an amend and learning from it is more productive. The amend requires more than an apology; it requires one’s very best effort not to repeat the offensive behaviour. There are times when a mistake is unavoidable. Perhaps the employee was not sufficiently trained or experienced to perform a task with no errors. Perhaps the instructions were open to more than one interpretation. Perhaps the person receiving the instructions felt too intimidated to request clarification or had been trained by early life experience not to ask questions so as not to appear stupid.Concerning the importance of our locus of control, the author said: “Your Locus of Control has a great bearing on one's self-esteem, problem solving, stress, expectations, and motivations.”If I believe that all the results in my life depends on what others do or what happens around me, I will always be stressed and expecting the worst to happen. I would have no motivation to make any effort to solve problems and would expect my problems to multiply. If I didn’t believe that I could solve problems or have any impact on the events in my life, my self-esteem would be very low.On the other hand, if I believe that I can make wise choices today that will have a significant positive impact on my tomorrow, I will feel empowered, confident and competent. I would also believe that my wise lifestyle habits practiced today would prevent disease. I would feel in total control of everything in my life.In this article, the author asks us to consider this question: “Who controls what we do?”We control what we do but there are many other influences involved. The question isn’t about control but about freedom. How truly free are we in the choices we make? To what extent is our action dictated by impulses formed by our subconscious mind or a reflex-response to a situation? If a choice we make is dictated by messages buried in our subconscious mind and we take action in an automatic thoughtless fashion, we are just as responsible for the outcomes of that choice as we would be if we made the choice to act with full awareness. The difference is that if we had such total awareness, we might not make that particular choice and thus would not have to suffer those specific consequences. No matter what lies behind my choice, I am the one making it.
Posted by Kit_ISIS_Kat at 11:08 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

How I get blocked and what I find works
I often feel that I have absolutely nothing to say that is new or any unique way of saying what is old. No story that enters my head is ever new and since I’m so much of a hermit and with limited vision, I don’t really observe people or have the fascination with them that a fiction writer needs. I usually think that there is nothing I could say that would be at all interesting to anyone. But like any other human being, I have this need to be heard, even if it’s only a piece of paper or a white word processing screen that will listen.It’s not that I can’t think of anything to write about or that there are no ideas. There are usually too many ideas spilling over themselves inside and I can’t settle on any one of them. I have lots of books or online sources for writing prompts and that is part of the trouble. I can’t choose one.I find that I am less “dry” if I will just let myself write without worrying about the content or form of it – to do “brain drain” writing that Julia Cameron speaks of in her book “Artist’s Way”. Sometimes I vary how I write. If I’ve been using a keyboard a lot then I’ll use pen and paper, usually blank paper so the lines don’t “box me in”. Sometimes I’ll write in different colours.I have a wealth of resources to help me with writing but I go through phases where they sit on the shelf and I can’t decide whether I want to write fiction (usually flash fiction that doesn’t need a detailed plot or well developed characters) or non-fiction. Lately, I’ve little interest in fiction but non-fiction is pretty big too. Even when I think of devotional writing, that is also huge so I find it hard to choose one specific topic and that will block me as much as having no ideas at all. I’m like a child who gets tired, restless and irritable because there are just too many new toys in the babysitter’s playroom and she doesn’t know how to choose what to play with.The only remedy that I’ve found to writer’s block is to “tip the block over” and write. Write anything at all. Even if I start by writing: “I have nothing to say… I don’t know what to write about…” and writing one of these phrases whenever I get stuck. Just keep the pen moving or the fingers tapping. Actually, this works better with pen in hand in my experience. I just write what words come into my head. J. Cameron suggests writing 3 pages every day using this method. Guess it clears out the “sludge” that blocks us and shows us what is really going on in our heads.When I first heard about “The Daily Writing Challenge” contest at WDC, I thought there’s no way I can do this now. Then I saw the “500 Words-a-Day” contest and thought it was easier but more than I could do but I really wanted something to get me writing every day. So I created a private book item and made it a blog and I called it “The 200 Words-a-Day Challenge”. I was doing it for about 10 days before we went on vacation with no internet and no regular routine. It was after a few days of being home that I revisited the page for the “500 Words-a-Day” and decided to do it. That was on Sept 15th and I’ve only missed two days. When I’d rather eat junk food than write, I know something is “eating me” and what I really need to do is WRITE! I have a clipboard and I pasted a sheet on it that says: “Write DAILY no matter what. Just WRITE, WRITE, WRITE!!!” If I’m not writing then something is wrong in my inner world.
Posted by Kit_ISIS_Kat at 9:09 PM 0 comments
Sunday, September 30, 2007

A new adventure
It is so easy to start new things. I have tried to give much more thought before starting something than I used to. I'm not nearly as impulsive as I used to be and I am really making a strong effort to finish projects that I've started; one was started about 3 years ago and the other I started at least 15 years ago.Writing is important to me. I have recently began (there's that word again!) to participate in a contest at http://www.writing.com/ where the goal is to write 500 words each day. I started on Sept 17th and only missed one day. I want to write every day and the more reasons I have to do that, the more likely it is that I will do it. I've been reading about blogs and I've read a few blog entries. There are so many types and so many ways to keep one. This definitely will not have a single theme or purpose. One day I might keep one like that if I find something important enough to me.I am interested in so many things and I have dabbled but not gone into depth in most of them. I'm not sure how many of them that I will write about in this blog. I'd like to write short devotions or reflections on things that I read about or listen to. I'm not as inclined to write fiction as I used to be and not at all inclined to write poetry, especially not with meter and rhyme!
These entries won't be journal entries. That's not to say they won't be personal, they will. However, I want each entry here to have it's own theme. I don't really expect much response since there are probably millions of blogs out there. How does one find the golden needle in the haystack. Titles of entries could sound intriguing but be boring, or just not what you're in the mood to read. Where does one start in looking for a blog that suits their interest and style?
It seems that the ideal blog gets a new entry daily. I hope to create a weekly or perhaps a semi-weekly one. I will at the very least post two or three entries each month. There's no point in promising (even just to myself) something that I know I could not maintain. There would be no benefit whatever to doing that. I would betray the expectation of anyone who visited this blog and actually enjoyed it. More important, I would betray myself. I've already done that far too many times. I don't intend to do it anymore. It destroys my self-respect. I don't promise that what I put here will be something recent (as required for the 500 words contest) but it will be original and it will be something I've written. It will hopefully be interesting to at least a few who visit here.
Posted by Kit_ISIS_Kat at 8:45 PM 0 comments
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