Hey.

I fairly much have an external locus of control, too. It is interesting... The Western ideal is very much internally focused. When you look at different cultures (Eastern cultures, in particular) they are comparatively much more externally focused. Especially when it comes to issues of moral responsibility / praise and blame. If you describe a situation and ask people (typically students) to pick the most likely reason for the behavior people raised in Western cultures tend to attribute the reason to internal features of the person (typically to do with underlying stable character traits) whereas people raised in Eastern cultures tend to attribute to situational factors. E.g., someone is late and the Westerners tend to say they are 'lazy' whereas Easterners tend to say 'bad traffic'.

We are used to thinking of dependence on others as a bad thing. Feminists have started to critique this, however. Women were thought of as 'unfortunately' dependent (like that was a character flaw) - but now people are starting to think of INTER-DEPENDENCE rather than DEPENDENCE or INDEPENDENCE as an ideal.

We have some power to influence what situations / circumstances we find ourself in. For example, we can choose to hang out with supportive / validating people. We can choose not to watch that scary movie just before bed. We can manipulate our environment (to a certain extent) so that we can get the support that we need from it. Though... It can be hard to learn how, sometimes.

I'm working on becoming stronger so I don't need so much external validation. I see needing it as a 'flaw' or 'weakness'. Actually... That is something I'm talking to my therapist about at the moment. He seems reluctant to see it as a flaw... I'm trying to get my head around his perspective on this...