What To Do When You're Controlled By Control

We love control. We “need” control to force a better outcome. 

We feel, with some mental strain and stress, we can bend the inevitable.

Living life, controlled by control, causes turmoil. Stress builds—anxiety brews. Nothing feels good enough.

The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is understanding what we can change and what we can't. What we have influence over, and what we don't. 

Most things in life, we can't change.

A virus decimates your career. A loved one passes away. Someone doesn't like you.

No amount of yelling at an airline employee about your delayed flight or wishing you were taller will change anything. 

“Time spent hurling yourself at these immovable objects is time not spent on the things we can change,” as The Daily Stoic reminds us on January 1st.

These are all things beyond your control. You can't will them to a different outcome. They are what they are. “Truth goes on as long as it's true,” says Ryan Holiday.

“Life is hard. It is filled with hard facts and hard decisions.”

Just because you have an opinion about something or someone doesn't mean you're right. You need to become clear on how to see the facts. 

The only thing you can control is how you respond. It doesn't matter what other people are doing, but what matters is what you do. What matters is how you think.

It's why I have the Serenity Prayer tattooed on my inner arm. I was controlled by control. The prayer brought great peace to my life.

“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.”

If you're controlled by control, remember...

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” — Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5