In Control
Have you ever tried to control something? of course, we all do. As a human, we have minds and free will, strange in our own way. People are iridescent, some are kind and luminous, some are nonchalance and mysterious, some are wild and rambunctious, some are silly and hilarious, some are hectic and serious, and all of those dozen types of person.
Are we able to control other people? their feeling, their thinking, their doing, we tried our best to keep them in line with our expectations. As social creatures we have the tendency to influence one and another, perhaps it wasn’t selfish to try to control others, we have an ego, and it's lived in our nature. We are capable of doing almost anything, the good or the bad one, as an implementation of our desire. Not merely a person, we also try to control situation, condition, position and make it a great enhancement to serve our performance. Why do we have to try to control lots of things anyway? though we could learn to control ourselves first.
You are at a friend’s house. You don’t feel hungry. Yet he tells you to have dinner and go. You have it as a formality.
You are at a friend’s house. You feel very hungry and it will take you an hour to get back home. He tells you to have dinner and go. You thank him profusely.
You are at a friend’s house. You are broke. You haven’t eaten anything for two days. He tells you to have dinner and go. He looks like a god to you. You feel like falling at his feet.
You pay the bill, load the items into your cart and walk out of the supermarket. It starts raining and your car is far away. You don’t have an umbrella.
‘Stupid rain,’ you mutter.
You are at your home. Early in the morning, you make hot tea and sit beside the window. Suddenly it starts raining.
‘Wow, beautiful weather,’ you chirp happily.
You get down from your car, walk into the office lobby, take the elevator to the 7th floor and go to your office. This has been your routine for the past three years. You find it very normal.
One day, the food court in the office building is closed for maintenance. You take a long 15 min walk to the restaurant outside the building in the hot weather and come back feeling tired. As you reach the lobby, the door swings outwards and you feel that fresh cold breeze from the air-conditioned hall. It feels like heaven. The feeling melts you.
In all the cases above, the world around you is precisely the same. It never changes, yet it triggers different feelings in you as your situation changes.
The world around us is a reflection of our mindset and moods. It doesn’t have any actual value. Rather, we assign it a value based on our perception. There is no reality, but only your perception of reality. And that perception keeps changing as you change your position and see it with a different mood. Our entire experience of reality occurs through our senses.
You can focus on your locus of control, don’t blame yourself for the things that are out of your hands. Though we could try, nonetheless it’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you respond to it. You’re the only one who knows what’s good for you.
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
We do enjoy the company of friends and family, we do rejoice in our great position, situation, and condition. We do enliven by all the moments of bliss, even so, don’t forget about the worst-case scenario that might take over. People will let you down eventually or even intentionally, just pay more attention to who they really are than who you want them to be. Though we can never really know a person through and through, only what they allow us to know and what slips out, time will tell. Position can be depressing, situation can be stressing, condition can be frustrating. However, we surely in control of our motion and emotion, use them to create the best responses instead of dwelling on it and blame it. Don’t imprison yourself in the circle of condemnation, if you can’t accept things heartfully then let them go. You know things won’t go well under forced circumstances.
Cheers! keep your chin up and be in control.
