CONTROL

We would all like to have control over our lives. We often feel we have little, both in a negative sense (when we think, “the world is against me,”) or in a positive sense (“things are going my way.”)

What does it really mean to have control of our lives? What can we actually control?

Freedom is an important variable in determining this. In a free society you have much more control than in an oppressive one. If the government allows you to make decisions, you have more control than if it makes countless laws to restrict your choices. For instance, laws banning abortion and guns would both be restrictive and reduce freedom of choice.

For the moment, let’s assume we live in a free society, where we have freedom of choice. Does this mean we have control over our lives? Only to a certain extent.

After spending several decades on this planet, I finally figured out the simple answer to the vexing question of control. Here’s what I concluded:

What I can control:

• ·         My thoughts

• ·         What I say

• ·         What I do

That’s it. Three things.

What I can’t control:

• Anything and everything else.

I wish I had understood this a long time ago.  Then I would not have wasted countless hours, days, weeks and even years trying to control things I didn’t realize I could not control.

Some of these things include:

• ·         What others think of me

• ·         How others treat me

• ·         How others behave

• ·         What others believe

Most importantly what is beyond our control is the actions of other people. It can be very frustrating to try to control others to fit into the way we would want our lives to be. That is because it is not possible.

This truth is stated quite eloquently in the Serenity Prayer, one I learned many years ago. For those not familiar with it, it goes like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Whether or not you pray, are a believer, an agnostic, or an atheist, the prayer communicates a profound idea. This idea did not resonate with me when I first heard it because I did not know how to distinguish between what I could and could not change. I did not yet possess the wisdom to know the difference. It was so simple it escaped me, as I struggled to solve what I thought must be a deep mystery.

As I finally developed the needed wisdom after many years, I realized the only thing I can change is myself, which requires courage. The things I can not change include literally everything else, especially the behavior of other people, and if I don’t accept them the way they are it brings nothing but unhappiness.

Another saying I picked up along the way is: “Pain is the resistance to what is.” A more positive way to say the same thing is, perhaps, “Go with the flow.”

In whatever way the concept makes sense to you, if you are bent on changing the world around you, rather than focusing on improving yourself, you will always be frustrated, and end up cynical, bitter and unhappy.

You might say, “But there have been people throughout history who have ‘changed the world!’”  We are taught this from a young age. We are told about people from Jesus, Muhammed and Buddha, to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

None of these people changed the world. What they were able to do was become great people and through their greatness appeal to the people around them to change themselves, which in turn changed the world.

Accepting the world the way it is can be difficult. Many problems exist and we want them to be solved. The best way to solve the world’s problems is for each of us to strive to be the best versions of ourselves. If we do our best with the only thing we can control, we can accept the world as it is.

A story comes to mind that helped me understand acceptance:

A man is traveling along what he believes is the right path when he encounters a high wall, so high he cannot see the top. Discouraged, he runs to his left to go around the wall, but it is miles long and he never reaches its end. He runs the other way, as far as he can, and the wall continues beyond the horizon in that direction as well.

He has an idea. He retrieves a small shovel from the belongings in a sack on his back and begins to dig. He digs down beside the wall hoping to find a way under it, but again becomes exhausted when it continues endlessly below the ground. Giving up. He collapses and sits with his back against the wall, filled with despair.

Some time goes by, and he sees another man approaching. The man bends down, concerned. And asks, “Are you alright?”

“No. Things could not be worse. I have encountered this impassable wall. I have done everything within my power to get past it.”

“And why is that a bad thing?” the man asks him.

“That’s a stupid question,” he replies, angrily. “It’s in my way and I want to go in that direction.”

“And you have done your best to achieve that?”

“Yes! Everything I possibly can.”

“I see,” the second man says. “Then, perhaps. you are supposed to be on this side of the wall.”