If you want to be happy and truly healthy, it is vitally important to learn to let go of control. In fact, you will need to go beyond this goal and understand that control does not even exist in life to any certain degree. Instead, the very concept of control, although designed to give us a false sense of confidence and satisfaction, truly has never existed in the world and never will.
You might be incredibly naive and think that you are in control in life and have control over your life, but you do not. You might be more enlightened and realize that you are not in complete control, but try to be and become furious when things happen that throw you off course. You might be almost to the ideal mindset of realizing that control does not exist, but still grasping at it in certain ways and feeling despondent when the objective remains just out of reach. Your true destination should be cultivating a mindset that knows deeply and with certainty that control does not and can not exist.
You can not control your life or anything that happens within it. You can only hope to steer your life in a specific direction through proactivity and positive thoughts and actions. However, you do not have to live long to learn that control is never a sure thing, since life tends to throw us curve balls that make it impossible for us to stay the course on a continual basis.
Now, when I advise giving up control, I do not mean that it needs to be surrendered to a specific entity (predestination, fate, karma, God). I simply mean that you can not claim the idea of control for yourself and make it a goal that you can accomplish or rely on in life. Control does not exist. This is an absolute. No one and no thing has absolute control, especially you or I.
When I suggest laying down the very desire to exercise control over life, I am definitely not suggesting that you become passive and all-accepting. In fact, I suggest the exact opposite stance to live an optimal life. Be proactive in all things. Do your best. Do not accept or make excuses. Embrace quality within yourself and do everything you can to share your quality with the world around you and all your brothers and sisters who occupy it. Do not take up the attitude that so many drop-outs embrace: “I am not in control, so whatever happens is fine”. No, it is not. You can and should do everything in your power to move life in a positive direction for you and those around you. However, you must not obsess over the planning and execution of your life to the detriment of life itself.
There is a middle ground of balance that needs to be struck here in order to get it right. Don’t be full of excuses and use the idea of not having control to justify a passive, worthless existence. However, do not strive to achieve something which is impossible, trying so hard to gain and keep control that your life is forfeit in stress, pain, illness and suffering all around you. Instead, find the sweet spot where you are happy to try to move your life in the direction you see fit, but accept when things do not go your way.
Just because your plan does not work out does not mean you must cease and desist. Instead, it merely means that you can roll with the punches life offers up and re-strategize your future in real time, as needed, on a continuous basis. This is the true flexibility of enlightenment and it can only come from giving up the rigid concept of control and embracing the more realistic idea of blending into the harmony of life and moving with the current, instead of against it.
