HIPS: Want to be rescued? Look inward, not outward

By Bryan Hyde

One of the most important lessons we can learn in life is that no one is coming to our rescue.

That’s why it’s so important that we learn to accept responsibility for our own lives as early as possible. 

A lot of people seem to have acquired a long-term habit of avoiding accountability as a way of avoiding punishment. 

Or they find that they’ve allowed themselves to be persuaded that they aren’t good enough to run their own lives.

Becoming a problem-solver requires a willingness to acknowledge that expecting someone else to ride to our rescue is irrational, at best.

It’s not that meaningful relationships and partnerships can’t help us create the social capital necessary to solve serious challenges; it’s that relatively few people are willing to trust themselves to make the hard decisions and to commit to living their lives with honor and character no matter what others around them are doing.

It’s simply easier for them to go with the flow and to do as others tell them to do.

Lasting solutions are best implemented at the individual, rather than the societal, level. The single greatest hurdle to overcome in becoming an effective problem-solver is to stop waiting for someone else to ride to our rescue.

The sooner we recognize our learned helplessness, the more quickly we can discard it and begin to rescue ourselves.

* Hyde In Plain Sight is written by KDXU personality Bryan Hyde. Catch his daily HIPS vignette at 7:50-ish every weekday morning on KDXU and listen to The Bryan Hyde Show weekends at 7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday nights.