Life happens. Have you ever heard that? There are more colorful versions of that saying as well, but the message is the same. You are not in control of what happens to you. Traffic, the weather, other people, the hours in a day, the way mustard tastes, all of these things are out of your control.
And that is a gift!
I don’t know if you’ve ever taken a good look at the world around you, but it’s pretty big. There is a lot going on here. There are roughly seven billion people living on this planet.
Now imagine being responsible for all of that.
It makes me think of the Jim Carrey movie, Bruce Almighty. In the movie, Bruce thought he could do a better job of running the world than God, so God gave him the power to do just that. It went great for a bit and Bruce had the life he had always wanted, but the rest of the world started falling apart. It was a complete disaster!
We weren’t meant to have that kind of control and the sooner we accept that, the happier we can be.
We put a lot of responsibility on our own shoulders, with little to no power that actually affects the outcome of those situations. When we start to truly embrace the fact that we can’t control the world around us, it takes a huge amount of pressure off.
I have struggled with what people think of me for my whole life and so I would try to control how people see me. The truth is that I have no control over that. People will think what they want, and trying to control or change that is exhausting!
What’s even more difficult is trying to control how other people feel. I have definitely been guilty of this in my life.
A few years ago I realized that I had a hard time saying “no” to people because I didn’t want them to be upset with me. One day a friend told me that that is really a form of manipulation.
I couldn’t believe it!
“I’m so nice!” I thought. Look at all these nice things that I am doing for people. Never mind that I grumble to myself about how I don’t have time and get bitter if they don’t thank me enough. “Look at how I am sacrificing for the people around me! How could that possibly be controlling?” I thought.
But when I truly looked at myself, I realized that I was trying to control how people felt about me. I wasn’t helping people solely out of the generosity of my heart but because I wanted them to like me, or I didn’t what them to feel stressed or upset.
That was a hard lesson to learn and I am still learning it.
A dear friend shared with me that I am only responsible for what I feel and, more importantly, what I do with those feelings; but I can’t control how you or anyone else feels. I am responsible for how I treat you, but you are responsible for your feelings and actions.
The serenity prayer is used a great deal for many things, and there is a lot of truth and wisdom there. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
It seems like we could get rid of a lot of unneeded stress and worry by just letting go of some of the responsibility we feel for the world around us. There is a great deal of freedom in accepting that you can’t control the world around you. What would your life look like if you let some of that go?
Cole Johnson is a psychotherapist who works with individuals struggling with anxiety in its many forms as well as couples and families. He is the owner of First Light Counseling [http://www.firstlightcounselingcenter.com] in Omaha and Blair Nebraska.