It's bad enough that the word "inevitable" is part of the English language. It's even worse if you use it often, still worse if you believe it. But what if some seemingly "inevitable" things were, in fact, evitable? Would a missing two-letter prefix be enough to change reality?

You might be too hung up by the word “evitable” to consider my question. But, there is such a word. In fact, it’s just as real as “maritorius”, “macaronic” or “mugwump.”

But we half-empty types seem to prefer uglier “realities”—things we supposedly can’t avoid. “Oh it’s just inevitable. His dad had it, his grandpa had it, his poodle has it. How can he NOT die of a heart attack?” Now, really. Let’s give belief a chance to make things right. There’s no changing age, sex or family history. Okay. But consider:

-Fat intake
-Blood pressure
-Smoking
-Physical activity
-Stress

All of these things are changeable (at least to some extent). But there’s still some of us who would rather remain helpless. It’s literally a "dogged" way of thinking, and one with consequences. Martin Seligman discovered this in the 1960's while studying conditioning in dogs. He "accidentally" discovered what he later called "learned helplessness", an extreme form of "I can't" behavior.

Initially, Seligman's dogs didn't start off feeling or thinking that they were helpless (hence the term "learned"). It was only after they got shocked repeatedly and couldn’t escape that they decided to give up. The twist, though, is that Seligman then made it so they COULD escape. He even showed them how to escape. Yet, the next time around the dogs just sat there. They had come to believe in the “inevitable.”

There was a way out for them, though. For the dogs it was getting up and walking to the other side of a shuttlebox. For the rest of us, it's believing that the possibility of a healthy life is something worth believing in. Then we got to get up and walk to the other side of the shuttlebox.