No, none of us is omnipotent. Not even Illuminati.
Somewhere, in a candlelit dark room, twelve old white men are bursting into laughter with their deep, evil, mechanical voices. Their artificial intelligence global mind control system identified my subtitle implying that Illuminati isn’t omnipotent.
Yes, they are the masters of the Illuminati. They have absolute power over our world and they are connected to the universal knighthood of intergalactic order of Neoptolemus, which has absolute power over the whole universe.
The AI mind control system of the Illuminati is screening all of our thoughts 24/7, identifying the seeds of thoughts that might threaten them, and effectively neutralizing those seeds with subatomic alpha particle waves.
The AI mind control system is programmed to report the thoughts that will be of interest to the twelve masters. In this case, it knew that my silly subtitle would make its masters laugh. That’s how it got reported.
This is Where I Differ from the Personal Development Industry
In case you are wondering, no, I don’t believe in any of them, but sure, it makes good fiction. I like Dan Brown movies. Nevertheless, I stand by my conviction that none of us is omnipotent and that’s where I differ from the personal development industry.
If you consume sufficient personal development content, you might think that you are omnipotent. You might believe that you can be, do, have whatever you want. “Not so fast,” I say.
Sure, we humans are more capable than we think we are. However, we aren’t omnipotent. That’s wrong by definition. By definition, only one person can be omnipotent.
As soon as you have two or more people, they will have contradicting desires and only one of those contradicting desires can be realized. As a result, at least one person would be not omnipotent.
Bottom line, not everybody can be omnipotent as it is pushed by the personal development industry. Moreover, I don’t believe that there is an omnipotent human being or a group out there. We all share our power. And that is good.
Then why does the personal development industry push this omnipotence theory?
It’s a marketing trick, tell people the lies they want to hear and they’ll buy whatever you are selling. Sorry, for being blunt.
Wait, isn’t this blog about empowering people?
Yes, it is about empowering people and lying to people doesn’t empower them. On the contrary, it weakens them. Only truth empowers people and that’s what I’m trying to deliver in my content.
How did I come up with all of this?
Yesterday, I’ve read a post about a personal development concept called locus of control. I came across this concept for the first time more than a decade ago in the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, a great, no-nonsense book.
I haven’t heard much about the concept later, because the movie Secret came out and the personal development field got dominated by the law of attraction.
Focus on the things that you can control and let go of the things that you can’t.
Back then, I interpreted the locus of control concept as “focus on the things that you can control and let go of the things that you can’t.” In other words, instead of complaining about Illuminati controlling the world, focus on my own life and improve whatever I can.
External Locus of Control
There’s a common sentiment that there is a group of people controlling the whole world and that’s why your life sucks. There isn’t a consensus about who these people are. Are they the Illuminati? Washington? Wall Street? The Elites? We don’t know.
This is the textbook definition of external locus of control. This results in thoughts of everything controlled by powers outside of us. Therefore, we don’t have any control over our lives. What’s the use of even trying? This is the victim mentality. It results in a downward spiral.
Internal Locus of Control
The personal development industry rejects the external locus of control and rightly so. Unfortunately, it does it by taking the opposite extreme view, which results in the idea that we are all omnipotent. That conclusion is equally delusional.
The truth isn’t any of these extremes. It is somewhere in between. We have neither 100% control over our reality. Neither are we completely powerless. The more we can tilt the scale towards having more power over our lives, the better our lives are going to become. This is my goal in life and this is the message I’m trying to convey with my blog.
If you want to find out where your locus of control lies, you can take this test to find it out. If you find out that you have 100% internal locus of control, I’m afraid that you’re delusional. If you find out that you have 100% external locus of control, you are equally delusional. The reality is somewhere in between.
My results? That was around 70% internal locus of control. It’s tilted towards the right direction with a healthy dose of realism. This matches my life experience and it is the basis of my secret success recipe.
My Secret Success Recipe
You are more capable than you think you are. You can improve your capabilities every day with continuous improvement. Sure, external factors play a role in your success and a healthy dose of optimism will help you taking full advantage of those factors.
Or in other words:
- Continuous improvement of what I can control
- A healthy dose of optimism about what I can’t control
This is my secret success recipe and I must admit that I have been lucky in many times in my life, for which I am grateful. You can be too and the recipe for that is the two ingredients above.
Burak BilginSoftware developer with a Ph.D. and 15 years of experience. I write daily on personal development and life lessons. Sign up to my email newsletter to receive a weekly overview of my latest content on personal development and life lessons.