Learned helplessness

Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation. It has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances.

Just a few days ago, me and another few classmate and our lecturer John were having lunch together, and we discussed about the moving of school to the new campus at Upper Thomson. And we say that it is inaccessible. Then one of them suggested that maybe we could write in to SBS to request for new bus service to the campus, as there is a demand now. I quickly rebut it by saying that they most probably will reject by giving the reason "It will increase the expenses of SBS, if we start new service we might increase the fare etc....".

John immediately pointed out to us that is learned helplessness, saying we had learned the helplessness mindset over the year due to the influences of Government. This strike me hard on the head, realizing that although we might not had the actual experience of being helpless in that situation, but we had pick up the mindset of being helpless in that particular situation unknowingly.

Could this be due to the influence of the media or our society or ourselves? I believe all play a part in this. Learn helplessness can be apply to the daily event of our lives, how many of us had actually dismiss the thought of doing something even before tried doing it by reasoning that it is impossible or can't be achieve. Is this a type of learn helplessness?