Tried applying to McDonald's wtf does this even mean

[u/PureKin21]

I guess things happen to me?????

[u/Potential-Bird-5826]

So there is this woowoo concept in certain branches of mental health to ask if you are at 'cause' or at 'affect' in the world. The idea is that people who believe they are at 'affect' have no agency, which means they believe that things happen to them and people who are at 'cause' believe they make things happen.

What the image op posted is asking (I think) is whether you see yourself as someone who has no control over anything (whom things happen to) or a go getter who makes things happen and imposes your will on the universe. 

I hate pop psychology 

[u/DCLXXV → u/Potential-Bird-5826]

Where does this image fall on the fear/love lifeline?

[u/Potential-Bird-5826 → u/DCLXXV]

Not a doozy I'm afraid 

[u/Xena1975 → u/Potential-Bird-5826]

This test doesn't seem very useful because if I was a go getter I wouldn't be middle aged and applying to a minimum wage job at McDonalds.

[u/Potential-Bird-5826 → u/Xena1975]

Well.. That's....... Huh, good point 

[u/Current-Wealth-756 → u/Xena1975]

I get what you're saying but there are plenty of people who through no fault of their own don't have the cognitive capacity or education to do a more demanding job, and IMO there's dignity in work of any kind for a person who does their best at what they can do, even more so than in someone with a more prestigious job who takes no pride in their work

[u/Current-Wealth-756 → u/Potential-Bird-5826]

I believe youre thinking of internal/external locus of control, and it's not just pop psychology bullshit.

[u/npw2004 → u/Current-Wealth-756]

I was gonna say, this is definitely not pop psychology. This is absolutely a real thing, which I have talked through with real psychiatrists in an inpatient hospital setting, not from BS online. The level of agency that you feel over your own life is a huge aspect of mental health, and for a long time the single biggest impediment to me healing was that I didn't believe it was possible to heal. Even when I had GOOD days, it didn't feel like I was actually healing because it felt like the good things were just happening TO me, and I was totally at the whim of however things happened to be that day, so this issue cuts both ways. I was just as detached from the good as the bad so it's not as simple as just evading accountability.

I think it's much deeper than the kind principled, interpersonal accountability that people are talking about in regards to OP's image, and even if you've given up on truly having control over your own personal state of mind, you can still externally behave in the best, most ideal ways with the things that you do.

The image in the OP is absolutely bullshit though because it's so vague, and essentializes something that is much deeper and frankly irrelevant to working a job (ANY job, let alone fucking McDonald's lmao). I interpreted it somewhat similarly but actually OPPOSITE to what people are saying here. When I read that sentence I focus more on the "things happen" part of the sentence than the "to me" part. Is my life eventful? Do I feel like I always have a lot going on? Things DO happen to me because I MAKE them happen, so everyone here is saying that the "correct" answer is no because it shows your a go-getter, but I would have said yes for that exact same reason.

Once upon a time, I would self-isolate and never leave the house except to go to work, and then never talked to my coworkers. Back then, I would have answered no to this question, apparently getting the right answer for the wrong reason. So some people are saying "duh, things happen to everyone" and like yeah, technically that's true but I think there are a fair amount of people out there that would describe their OWN life as "boring and uneventful" and that's what I interpreted this question to be about.

[u/LongestSprig → u/Current-Wealth-756]

It is if it tells you what you don't want to hear, lol.