We're All Out Of Control, But It's Fine

Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay

Here’s a one-item quiz.

Not long ago, if you had told me I was out of control, I would have been:

A. Insulted

B. Threatened

C. Resistant

D. Scared shitless

Trick question! The answer is E: All of the Above.

 

Where you are also out of control, as you must have figured out by now, things being what they are. Most noticeably, in America since January 20, 2025. 

You don’t need me to elaborate.

 

On the other hand, if you believe things are tickety-boo and our ship of state is finally steaming in the right direction, read no further. I’m not here to argue with you. I wish all the best for you, fellow sailor. After all, we’re in the same boat.

But if you, like many of us, have serious questions about who’s at the helm, don’t freak out. 

Even though, yes, we’re out of control.

Not fair? Welcome to life on Earth.

We have no control over most of the things that affect us. We don’t control the weather. We don’t control the conditions into which we were born, or Congress, or the stock market, or other people.

We try to control our kids, but that wears off pretty quickly — as it should. How else are they supposed to grow into autonomous adults?

We don’t control how others see us or think about us, no matter how hard we try. Most of us can’t control our own blood pressure.

But we haven’t lost control. We can’t lose it, because we never had it to begin with.

Does that sound negative? Passive? Nihilistic, even? It’s just reality. As author Philip K. Dick said:

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away.”

Since reality insists on being what it is, we’re better off befriending it. Which we can't do as long as we think we’re in charge of it.

There is a one-panel cartoon I saw years ago that I wish I’d kept. It shows a serious, suit-clad man, his pants legs rolled up as he stands in the surf, his arms stretched forward and his hands splayed. Further up the beach, an observer whispers to his companion words shown in the caption:

 “He comes here every day to command the tide to go out.”

That tide-commanding man is all of us at some point. We think we know better how things ought to go, and we get frustrated when the world behaves as it does without taking our opinions seriously. We yell at traffic. Kvetch to the gate agent when our flight’s delayed. The TV news makes us nuts.

“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.” — Marcus Aurelius

This doesn’t mean zoning out into apathy or passive acceptance. We may not control much, but we do control our responses. We get to decide how to actively engage with what is.

It works better than trying to wrench reality around to make it fit our template. Reality very seldom cooperates. And our efforts at controlling it are a serious drain on our energy, not to mention our mental health. 

I’m not suggesting this is easy — being an anxious little human bean myself, I could give seminars in catastrophic thinking, based on my pernicious, ingrained misbelief that I can prevent disaster if I worry about it enough.

It’s an unhelpful mental habit, and I’m working on it. If we want to survive this passage of history without going bonkers, we’d do well to practice letting go of control as a crucial skill. 

Pioneering psychologist Marsha M. Linehan offers this: 

Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging. 

It takes practice to let go like that — certainly, it does for me. But when I get my head around the fact that I’m not in control, even for a moment, it’s deeply liberating. A huge relief.

I still call my elected officials every week and give them a piece of my mind (politely). I write letters, attend (some) protests. These are actions I can take, and I believe I’m responsible for doing what I can.

But I don’t get attached to the outcome. I have no control over that.

One more quote, this one from Jack Kornfield:

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

I think that’s a fair trade.