Why Victimhood Feels Good — And How It Holds You Back

By: Stuart Knight (Founder and CEO) | January 14, 2026

Let me ask you an important question.  How much of a victim are you?  Your answer to this question matters, because the amount of success, joy and fulfillment you experience in this life is directly influenced by it.  For the record, everyone is a victim sometimes, whether they recognize it or not. I’ve been a victim many times in the past, and to this day still struggle with the allure and rewards that come with playing that character in the play called life.

Like you, I learned about its many benefits when I was a child.  If I could prove that I had been the victim of some wrongdoing by a sibling, teacher or kid on the street, I could leverage the corresponding sympathy from my parents into a back tickle, sugary treat or first choice on TV that night.  It was an easy lesson to learn, and I constantly competed with my two brothers to see who could outdo the other in their unfair suffering.

Even though my parents did their best in calling us out when we feigned oppression at the hands of others, I couldn’t help but lock in the reality that victimhood was an effective tool of achieving short term gain.  As I continued to grow, I saw how it could be used to get attention from a girlfriend, preferential treatment from a buddy or an extension on a homework assignment. Later, as an adult, I saw how it could be weaponized as an easy excuse for not fulfilling a promise, an explanation as to why I had showed up late or the reason why I had no other choice but to sleep in that day.

Thankfully, there came a time in my early twenties where using this tool began to feel gross.  Although I had made the effort to take responsibility, and not use scapegoats more often than not during those earlier years, I'd be lying if I said I hadn’t played the victim on occasion when it was convenient. However, now as I found myself trying to become a more conscious, and self developed adult, I was beginning to see the long term losses outweigh the short term gains of victimhood.

The biggest one being the lack of autonomy that came with pulling this ace out of my back pocket from time to time.  Said another way, I could see that playing the victim card was the fastest way of taking myself out of a game I actually wanted to play. I learned quickly that the other players at the table had little time for excuses, and were interested in playing for much higher stakes.  That’s when I began to realize that I had a choice.  Either play by the rules great leaders play by, or become an expert in finding the easy way out.  

Since then, there have been countless times where my situation in life caused me to close the laptop, get up from my desk and literally go under the covers of my bed, while feeling sorry for myself.  Whether it was losing a big deal, not being considered by others or just feeling lonely, I have experienced multiple occasions where I wanted to sink into the void of victimhood and soak up my entitled bout of depression.  For it is there that I can make the world an unfair place, and myself a person without agency to change it.  Why change your own world, when it’s so much easier to demand that everyone else change theirs?

Yet, therein lies the great fallacy of thinking.  As you already know, the only thing you can change is yourself.

Much love,

Stuart

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