• Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke

Despite the fact that our examination of learned helplessness is directed at the failure of dialogue within our society, whether among Christian churches, or among religions, or ethnic groups in Nigeria, one feels the need to further highlight the danger of learned helplessness in our daily lives. The aim is to become aware of it and then find ways of overcoming it.

A couple of things are associated with learned helplessness:

• One begins to think that a repeated failure means there is no hope again.
• One starts having a negative feeling of loss of control
• Then there is the lack of effort to overcome the obstacle
• There is also an inability to notice the difference in the challenges
• Bad situations are taken as permanent and good situations as temporary
• Bad situations are blamed on one’s self while good ones are taken as sheer luck

But can learned helplessness be reversed?

Of course, the answer seems simple: If helplessness is learned, then the reverse could also be learned. This is exactly what Martin Seligman called ‘Learned optimism’.

How does learned optimism work?

• It involves a change of approach to problems and difficulties, that is, a change of how we interpret situations and circumstances.
• It assumes the attitude of determination to prevail despite difficulties. Difficulties are to be accepted as part of life, which does not demand that we run away.
• In that case failures should be taken as temporary and never permanent. They will vanish once I do the needful.
• One should not blame oneself but make the issue about the particular situation. In other words, things might improve if I work harder, or change my tactics, or prepare better or strategize better for this particular situation, rather than saying ‘I am just a failure!’.

Dear friend, don’t just give up. Failures are only temporary! Faith teaches us same too.