The victim mentality is an insidious trap because those caught in its jaws are convinced that they are a victim of their circumstances.

You are not succeeding because someone else is pushing you down, and until that is changed nothing will ever improve.

Unfortunately, the victim mentality has become the rallying cry of the left where people blame men for oppressing women, the rich for oppressing the poor, and the police for oppressing criminals. The list of oppressors and victims is endless.

Since these external forces are beyond your control, they ultimately determine your future. There is nothing you can do to change it.

Any attempts you make to overcome your circumstance will only result in failure.

So why try?

Trapped by this mindset, the resulting loss of hope can cause a person to spiral into depression.

And not surprisingly this was the conclusion of a study undertaken by Columbia University which found that Conservative teenagers are happier than those who hold left-wing views, The Blaze reports.

The study entitled, “The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs,” analyzed the depressive characteristics of liberal and conservative 12th graders between 2015 and 2018.

The study, which was published in the journal Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health, defined conservatives as supporting “individual liberty, right-wing social and religious values, and unregulated free markets.”

While those with liberal views were defined as supporting “equal opportunity, free but semi-regulated markets, civil liberties, and social justice.”

The researchers found that those with conservative views, “reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups.”

And the difference between the two groups was significant, Joseph MacKinnon writes in his article for The Blaze.

And along with this, the liberal students struggled with significantly higher levels of depression.

According to the study, liberal students were profoundly affected by circumstances beyond their control. This included such things as “war, climate change, school shootings, structural racism, police violence against Black people, pervasive sexism and sexual assault, and rampant socioeconomic inequality [that] became unavoidable features of political discourse.”

The researchers also added this interesting twist that the more educated their parents were, and arguably better off financially, the more likely the children were to be depressed.

Commenting on this study for American Affairs, Musa al-Gharbi noted that previous studies have also reported similar differences between those holding conservative views with those with Liberal ones. They revealed that conservatives are not only happier but also have a deeper sense of purpose than their liberal counterparts.

So why is this?

Al-Gharbi concluded that it “comes from feeling deeper connections with one’s country, one’s family, and the Divine.”

As believers, we have or should have a different mindset. Yes, we all face personal setbacks, but we have every reason to be optimistic because according to God’s Word, our circumstances do not limit us:

²⁶ And looking at them, Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 29:26 NASV)

¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13 NKJV)

READ: Liberal youth are far more depressed than their conservative counterparts — especially the girls AND How to Understand the Well-Being Gap between Liberals and Conservatives