Chapter 42 Control

There's a common self-help notion that we can manipulate or control life. create our own reality. Make things happen. And, if we don't, well, we need to try harder. Believe stronger. Feel it more, and so on. But all this advice is misleading.

Make no mistake, it's healthy to have a sense of control in life. Without it there would be no reason to make plans, set goals and take action. And even if our sense of control is an illusion, it's a useful one. the trouble is, the 'you-can-create-your-own-reality'mantra gives the impression we have total control. When,clearly, we don't. Remember:life is change and it won't always change in the direction of our choice.

But still we try to have absolute control. We try to steer the world in a different direction. It's as if we can stop the globe from spinning by holding it in our arms. Not possible, of course. The world is going to take us where it's going, but in our struggle to gain control we strain, go faster, try harder and squeeze tighter. Yet life can never be brought under total control.

Don't get me wrong. There's no harm in having preferences and working towards a better life. Who doesn't want to be healthy, wealthy of have fun?But when we can't make our preferences happen we need to be willing to accept that and live on. This isn't about giving up hope for a better future. It's able to control the external world, but we can always choose our attitude in the face of it.

But we don't stop there. We try to control people too. We want to keep them under our thumb so that they won't hurt us. So we check our partner's phone, snoop around and smother them so they won't have a chance to be unfaithful. we know our behavior isn't right, but we desperately want to avoid emotional pain. however, we fail to understand that, just as it's not possible to control the world, it's not possible to control other people.

In fact, there aren't many things you can control in  life, but you can always take control of yourself. there's a danger you'll overlook this point so I'm going to say it again another way: no matter what comes your way you can always decide how to be in the face of it. So if you lost your job, would you choose to feel demoralized, battered, hard done by, or would you choose to feel excited about starting a new career? There's always more than one attitude you can take.

You can always take control of yourself.