“What happens to me is because of me!”

I need to recall it more often.

This is how free people think, without however bragging carelessly, nor taking on themselves all the guilt of the World.
For they are not madmen, deluded that anything goes, only awakened minds who understand that some things are given but some you make.

To be a person, not a toy of fate, you observe and respect that which is given, but you are the one who made the choices, right or poor; for this reason, sooner or later, what you live is your own doing.

Paraphrasing what someone, maybe Joseph de Maistre, said about nations, it is true about individuals too, that those who are unable to fight for their freedom, or to withdraw in the inner exile of their reflective life, or to flee, or perish, deserve their situation.

Psychology has a name for this in its jargon - it is called locus of control [1], the place from which you feel that you are controlled; from inside you or from somewhere else, outside.

Those who expect everything that happens to them to be determined from an external place out of their reach - commanded by the forces of economy, God, history, chance, rulers and hidden power-groups or even by the inexorable progress of objective natural processes - those people live like objects, doomed to be some kind of puppets, helpless and submissive.

Those who on the contrary hold the they are the main cause of what happens to them - by what they, decide, do and avoid - are able of substantial control. In mind, and possibly in deed, they are free. They may fail but even then, they lived free. As a classic Romanian poem claims:

"We owe a death, we all, death reigns
but it is not at all the same
to die a roaring lion
or a dog in chains" [2]

In the infinite ocean of lawful causalities there is always some room to be an agent, author of  events, to start something [3], while you navigate your little boat. The complication and the myriad of forces at work is such immensity, the potential scenarios so many, that the choices you make are acts of free will.

What you cannot master and you do not want, you can often avoid and work your way around. You can wait and persist like water always ready to flow its way and your choice will come to pass. But keep away from the places where “everything not forbidden is compulsory” [4]; or run away from there as soon as you can. Do the same when you see that the wheels of history start to turn [5] around you.

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[1] Locus of control: Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcements. Psychological Monographs, 80, Whole No. 609

[2] George Coşbuc, Decebal catre popor: C-o moarte tot suntem datori!/…/Dar nu-i totuna leu să mori/Ori câine-nlănţuit.
 
 [3] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998

[4] T.H.White, The Once and Future King

[5] Martin Luther: "Blood alone moves the wheels of history" (but I never found the historic source where Luther wrote this.

At the time you must chose one, which
is prevailing?

Truth or compassion?

Friendship or Justice?

Freedom or Equality?

Solidarity or Prudence?

It is easy to choose between good and bad; the difficulty is to choose between bad and bad or good and good.

The trouble with values is that they are all good. All good values are not created equal.

Most people will swiftly agree with most of the high values of humankind: freedom, happiness, truth, respect, justice, equality, prudence, compassion, courage, modesty, patience, moderation, harmony, industry and so on; but ask them which is the most important and prevailing. You will suddenly find in the pattern the striking differences that tell fascists apart from communists and religious fanatics from tolerant free thinkers; or, why not, tolerant believers and fanatic free thinkers [1] .

Bad people have no problem with good values. Irreconcilable opposites are made from the same handful of values representing goodness. It is the weight of each that differs. Probably, the difference between sages and fools is also a matter of ordering values.

To become aware of your own values and  size up your order of priority is well worth careful reflection. The precedence of values passes so unquestioned that common sense does not even see it and certainly does not examine it. This layout defines nevertheless, shielded from critical sense, who you are, what you respect and what you seek in life. Your value-formula determines what good life is for you and what kind of wisdom fits you.

Your values drive you; if you are not aware of them they drive you from the dark.  Bring them to light and examine them. You do have a right to weigh them freely - in your head - to chose your own choices.

We tend to forget that values are man-made axioms agreed as beneficial. There is nothing God-given about them. Keep Nietzsche's hammer at hand [2] to gently tap on each value and to judge the sound. Depending on the place where they are hung, some of those bells may give an empty ding of hypocrisy.  This is not theory: your chime, your arrangement of personal values chants who you are.

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[1]See the work of Milton Rokeach ex: "The Nature of Human Values" 1973
[2]Friederich Nietzsche, "Twiligt of the Idols" and "Beyond Good and Evil"