Why is thinking of myself as a victim so destructive?

Number one, the victim mindset mentality. I think that this is perhaps one of the most pervasive ideological mindsets that is put forth today, not just in culture but really truly even in the academic setting. There is this pervasive understanding that, due inferiorities of one kind or another, people have been victimized, whether that's because of gender or race or age or whatever else. But what ends up happening is, when we're telling the story of our own life we end up putting ourselves in a position of inferiority, and when we do that and we begin to think that we're the victim in the story of our own life, we begin to interpret every situation and circumstance and setback not as an opportunity for growth but as further confirmation that everything is stacked against us. So what ends up happening is, rather than being the protagonist in the story, the one who's able to make changes and decisions and bring forth kind of historically what was called the American dream, meaning that you can build a family and build a career and have children and all these wonderful things can happen to your life, you're continually stuck in the mindset that everything is built in a way in which you've already missed the boat. Now, we can talk about that even in our modern day with young people. What is it? People today are talking about the fact that there was this huge wealth transfer over the last couple years, that the boomers bought their houses for pennies and now nobody can afford to live at the standard and all these other things. It is training people to not see opportunities. And if you know one thing about wealthy people and people who are successful in life, is they're constantly trying to solve problems and they're constantly seeing opportunities.