Do we do just enough to get by, just enough to make the grade, or do we try to get as much out of everything we do as possible? For example, college classes or assignments. What’s the real reason for college classes or assignments?
When we do just enough to get by, who are we really shortchanging?
Why do we shortchange ourselves so much all the time?
There are 3 kinds of people:
1) External Locus of Control People- you know this person: it’s never their fault; other people are idiots and always causing them problems; they have excuses for everything that goes wrong in their life (sounds like a bunch of college students!). It’s not their fault. It’s out of their control. They’re victims. Victims?… sounds like a bunch of Americans doesn’t it?
2) No Control People- just go through life letting whatever happens happen without giving any thought to why it happened or what they might do to make something different happen. They trudge or follow along with whatever’s happening at the moment following the easiest path. They spend little time thinking about their future or their past. I think most people fit into this category.
3) Internal Locus of Control People- are in charge of what happens in their own lives. They try to make whatever happens to happen. They don’t let themselves give or accept excuses because they know that you can find an excuse for everything, for every mistake, every failure, and that always leads to us letting ourselves off the hook, not holding ourselves responsible, or setting our standards so low that they serve us no benefit. They know that they’re in charge of their own success in life, and failures, mistakes, and even tragedies are simply learning experiences.
So, you have to ask:
Which one am I?
Which one should I be?
Which one is the most successful and happiest people?
The other night I was talking with an upstanding member of the community and an LSUS alumni from several years ago. Kind of surprisingly, he had a pretty negative opinion of my university and had no support for the school. I learned that his opinion came from LSUS’s lack of growth. One statement was something like this: LSUS could have been a great university but it has just sat there all these years not doing anything new… BPCC and everybody else has just passed it by and left it behind.
So, there you go, there’s lot’s of reasons for LSUS’s lack of growth, one reason is in fact its lack of growth.
It’s hard to be proud of something that’s not dynamic and successful.