How Do You Know What You Can Control Vs What You Can’t Control?
The answer is simple. So simple it seems incorrect.
Spend any time online, and you are quickly overwhelmed by the craziness of the world. In just a few seconds on any social media platform, you will probably see something about world politics, the increasingly disturbing American government, friends struggling with job security, family issues, and the like. All things that you probably desire to do something about.
But you can’t. You, yourself, can do nothing about the Russia/Ukraine conflict, Trump and his increasingly unhinged ramblings, the troubles your friends are experiencing, or the disconnect between your parents and siblings. You can do nothing at all for any of this.
That feels wrong, right? Given the instant connectivity of the world, the tools at our fingertips, how can we do nothing at all? Because in this realm, we have zero control.
When all is said and done, you and I have next to no control over anything anywhere. Everything happening around you, all the people, places, and things, you can’t control. Yet you and I are inundated with messages about control, conformity, and standards and norms.
Nobody teaches us to look within. All the lessons of formal education are about the external. We’re given false notions of what we can and can’t control, then wonder why we feel lost, uncertain, and confused.
If you take the time and effort to look within, the confusion can seem double. But then it can become manageable.
Look within to understand the world without
I was in my mid-twenties when I first started to learn about my inner self. Yes, I’d been in and out of therapy as a child, but even then, it was never made clear the delineation between the inner and outer world. A great deal of my childhood therapy was about coping with the outside, not the inside, after my parents divorced.
When I began to look within, I found quite the mess. Jumbled ideas, a huge store of beliefs and values I wasn’t sure I held anymore, and a bunch of missing memories (which is a whole other story and irrelevant to this discussion). But beyond this, I started to find understanding. I began to get a sense of who, what, where, how, and why I was.
Then, from there, I started to see how my inner world impacted the world outside of myself. Over the next twenty years, I explored, dove deeper into my subconscious with my conscious mind, and in time evolved my Pathwalking philosophy and a more generalized sense of myself and my place in the world.
This showed me that how I feel, or how I’m made to feel, is on me. Nobody else is in my head, heart, or soul. This revelation opened the door to understanding what I can control vs what I can’t control.
It seemed too simple. However, upon applying, I realized that even this simplicity is fraught with complexities.
Control and the illusion of control
How do you know what you can control vs what you can’t control? Simple. If it comes from within you. You are the one who controls your thoughts, feelings, intentions, positivity or negativity of approach, and actions. In fact, only you can control this.
To be fair, things happen outside of your control that will cause you to think and feel things. Losing a job, a breakup, watching ICE murder innocents, and the like will evoke ideas and emotions. After that, however, you can take control of them.
By practicing active conscious awareness, right here and now, you can gain control over your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. This starts with questions only you can answer, and only in this present moment. They include,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions?
- Is my approach positive or negative?
- What am I doing?
Since you alone are in your head, heart, and soul, you alone can answer these. And if the answers don’t suit you, now you can change them.
The biggest issue with this comes from nobody teaching us how to reach within ourselves. We learn how to react to others, to people, places, and things. But nobody instructs anyone on how to look within and work with your subconscious self.
This is important because, when all is said and done, the only control you have is of yourself. If it’s not you and yours, from within, you can’t and don’t control it.
Is it really that simple?
Control is limited and unlimited
There’s a great quote by Henry Ford that addresses the reality of control and what you can actually, factually, do.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
Ultimately, you choose and decide if you can or can’t do something.
Yes, this means active practice in many respects. For example, I can’t fly a plane because I never learned how to fly a plane. I could, however, choose to learn to fly a plane. Then I’d be able to. Now this would be in my control.
This seems, in many ways, selfish. But it’s not. It’s life. You can’t control any other people, places, or things. I can’t make anyone else see reason, I can’t make New Jersey the same as Minnesota, nor can I change the weather. I can choose to seek reason over fear, live in this place rather than that place, and add or remove a layer depending on the climate.
All that I can and do control is me, my life, and my inner being. But that’s not small. That’s actually huge. Because once you assert that control and change the parts of yourself inside that don’t resonate with who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be, you become empowered.
Truly empowered. Nobody but you can empower you. That’s the other secret they don’t teach us in school. Real power, your power, is wholly yours and comes from within, not from without. All the rest of it is superficial.
When you change yourself, empower yourself, you gain more control of the things that you can. From there, you can inspire others to do the same. In that way, you can change the world for the better. Empowerment is the key.
Has this helped you recognize what you can control vs what you can’t control?
This is the seventh-hundred-thirty-fourth (734) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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