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Life Control Percentage

How much control you have over your own life?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • 10 %

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 20 %

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • 30 %

    Votes: 8 25.0%
  • 40 %

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • 50 %

    Votes: 6 18.8%
  • 60 %

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • 70 %

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • 80 %

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • 90 %

    Votes: 5 15.6%
  • 100 %

    Votes: 2 6.3%

  • Total voters
    32

Kasper

Diabolical
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
11,590
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Ah, we come back to the difference between us. From my POV, there are ways to overcome hatred, but hate is never a choice, in the same sense as other choices. I can't choose to hate someone. I can choose to try and overcome the hatred, though.

And we just hit a wall didn't we :D

I used to hate people than I realised it was pointless, now I chose to be indifferent to those I dislike and not let them affect me.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
I used to hate people than I realised it was pointless, now I chose to be indifferent to those I dislike and not let them affect me.

Well, that is almost the same attitude as mine, except that I don't believe I control the hate in the same way as you think you control it. The feeling can go away if I see their point of view or it can go away if I see how insignificant the situation is for me. Maybe there are other reasons. But, my stance is that I cannot prevent the feeling. Thus, the feeling isn't controlled by me. After the feeling is conscious I can make it go away. This is a certain level of control over the feeling but not that much that I could say I control the feeling.
 

Kasper

Diabolical
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
11,590
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Well, that is almost the same attitude as mine, except that I don't believe I control the hate in the same way as you think you control it. The feeling can go away if I see their point of view or it can go away if I see how insignificant the situation is for me. Maybe there are other reasons. But, my stance is that I cannot prevent the feeling. Thus, the feeling isn't controlled by me. After the feeling is conscious I can make it go away. This is a certain level of control over the feeling but not that much that I could say I control the feeling.

I know feelers who feel the same as me but ignoring that for a second, maybe this is a T v F thing?
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
Feelings are animal level stuff. Thinking is for humans only. Or perhaps for some other very highly developed mammals. When you compare them, you need to remember that thinking has been around for a really really short time. It cannot be as effective as feeling (or have as much control).

I don't see how the clear-headed thinkers might all be opposed to this. This is very logical. We are first animals, then humans.

BTW, I would think it is J vs P thing, because the Js are more in need of the feeling of control with all their schedules. ;) But you are not J, so... never mind.
 

Kasper

Diabolical
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
11,590
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Feelings are animal level stuff. Thinking is for humans only. Or perhaps for some other very highly developed mammals. When you compare them, you need to remember that thinking has been around for a really really short time. It cannot be as effective as feeling (or have as much control).

I don't see how the clear-headed thinkers might all be opposed to this. This is very logical. We are first animals, then humans.

How do you know animals don’t think? Scientists think that animals think

So what comes first; You think of something sad, you become sad? How is it illogical to say that thought resulted in the feeling?

BTW, I would think it is J vs P thing, because the Js are more in need of the feeling of control with all their schedules. ;) But you are not J, so... never mind.

Actually I'm not 100% sure here so maybe.
 

Darjur

New member
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
493
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5
Such delusion..............

I should probably make my thoughts clearer.


The only thing that I have no control of to my knowledge is the weather and to what place I was born in to. And that as well, I can influence, I can pack up and leave and start a life somewhere that's to the south of here if I have a wish to for example to make the surrounding climate hotter.

Everything else is something that I "allowed to happen" because of a choice I made.

I'll give an example, maybe this will clear things up more,

I met or I didn't meet a new person today because of the route I chose to take while going to work. By choosing a route, in reality, I consciously or unconsciously made a decision which will controls my life in a certain way, but I do not know all of the consequences that this decision might have.
If I met someone interesting while going through the park, it is because I choose to go through the park that I have made this possibility a reality, if I had decided to go to work through the boulevard, I would not have met this person simply because the choice I have made prior destroyed the possibility of me meeting him at that time in the park.

Another example, if I were to go to work tomorrow and be told that I'm fired out of the blue. I would not say that this is an unpredictability over ones life, I would say that this happened because my choice of signing up for said work created "the possibility of being fired" and my further decisions are the things that will further influence the likability of that possibility growing, or shrinking. If I had not decided to sign up for that work, the possibility of me getting fired from it would not have been created. So in essence it's not an unpredictable occurrence, but it was the result of my control over my life.



The only thing I really believe in is cause and effect. While I do believe that I have nearly absolute control and influence over my life, I do not know the fruits of my decisions.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
Another example, if I were to go to work tomorrow and be told that I'm fired out of the blue. I would not say that this is an unpredictability over ones life, I would say that this happened because my choice of signing up for said work created "the possibility of being fired" and my further decisions are the things that will further influence the likability of that possibility growing, or shrinking. If I had not decided to sign up for that work, the possibility of me getting fired from it would not have been created. So in essence it's not an unpredictable occurrence, but it was the result of my control over my life.

You have a strange kinda way defining "control". That sounds almost like a religion. I have to admit that I agree with everyone having this kind of power over things happening in their lives, but I wouldn't call it control.
 

Darjur

New member
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
493
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5
You have a strange kinda way defining "control". That sounds almost like a religion. I have to admit that I agree with everyone having this kind of power over things happening in their lives, but I wouldn't call it control.

Eh, it might be religious. I don't really care about that, but if this is a religious view, then the opposite, thinking that you have no control is a religious view as well.

My definition of control is "having the ability to influence an event", while this is not a dictionary reference, I can't remember, even the dictionary one being "knowing all of the possibilities of an action."
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
Well, your definition is as good as any. I think control is control if I have a choice which leads to certain outcome with some probability. If I understood correctly, your way of control has unknown outcome and unknown probability. It is an interesting view on this.. and, yeah, it leads to almost 100% control if we use your definition. When comparing the amount of chaos between these two views, you don't really have any of it, while me, I live in it. This should also lead to you having stronger feeling of responsibility over your life than I do. I have very few choices that influence my future, while you need to make such choices all the time.
 

Anja

New member
Joined
May 2, 2008
Messages
2,967
MBTI Type
INFP
Addressing a few things posted since I was last here.

Yes, Frankl, nolla. I'm familiar with him. Good reference. There are many interesting things to learn from those who spent time in the concentration camps. Well, and prison, also. If they survive they seem to learn a certain control over the way they view corporeal existence and of time.

As far as which comes first, feelings or thoughts, and which influences which, this is something I've pondered. My conclusion is that sometimes one, sometimes the other. But it is true that one can learn, through gathering knowledge, new ways of thinking which will then have an influence on our feelings.

I think it's important that we don't always and only operate on feelings first. That pesky balance concept. Truly then our behavior can become animalistic.

Principles of Rational-Emotive Therapy are practice of this skill.

And a comment on whether animals think. I've owned cats all my life and am convinced that some of them are savvy thinkers. I presently have a cat which can make distinction among objects and where they belong in the home. I've never seen that before in cats though have seen it in dogs.

We've got simians "signing" and forming sentences which they weren't taught. Much evidence to indicate that animals are capable of human-style thought. And, since I was a child, I've NEVER bought that scientific blindness which insists that animals don't have feelings. Remember some pretty interesting conflicts about that in high school.

They once tried to teach me tabula rasa upon which my intuition called bullthit. Turns out they've rethought that one and I expect they'll be talking more about animals, feeling and thought in time. It's all so esoteric, anyway, that it's difficult to express for me. I mean in the sense of reducing it to chemical reactions in the brain, which it also is besides having an interactional component.

Think I've wandered somewhere to the odd side of topic here. :doh:
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
Yes, Frankl, nolla. I'm familiar with him. Good reference. There are many interesting things to learn from those who spent time in the concentration camps. Well, and prison, also. If they survive they seem to learn a certain control over the way they view corporeal existence and of time.

Yeah, I think there might be a view found among prisoners that gives a whole different perspective on how much we can control. Their physical control over the environment is basically none, yet they must have some feeling of control.

As far as which comes first, feelings or thoughts, and which influences which, this is something I've pondered. My conclusion is that sometimes one, sometimes the other. But it is true that one can learn, through gathering knowledge, new ways of thinking which will then have an influence on our feelings.

Yes. I agree. I've found that by altering the way we think about life can change how we feel. This is a long term effect, though. I don't believe that I can will myself to kill any feeling, so in that sense feeling is a stronger factor.

Much evidence to indicate that animals are capable of human-style thought. And, since I was a child, I've NEVER bought that scientific blindness which insists that animals don't have feelings. Remember some pretty interesting conflicts about that in high school.

Yeah, I remember debating for animal feelings as a kid. I don't see how animals could be without feelings, it has always sounded ridiculous. But, thinking is kinda harder question... Anyhow, I don't really have to come to any conclusion here, since the reason I brought it up was just to say that feelings have more power when thinking in evolutions terms. But, lets say that I believe there was something going on in our dogs mind.
 

notjeffgoldblum

New member
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
35
MBTI Type
INTP
Answering anything other than 0%, 100%, or "in between", to this poll makes absolutely no sense. All values between 0 and 100 are arbitrary.
 

Samurai Drifter

New member
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
116
MBTI Type
INTP
Roughly 90%, I'd say. Occasionally things happen which are beyond my control, having been set in motion by people/events long in the past, but I make my own decisions and generally have control over my life.
 
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