Work With What You Can Control

One of the lessons that I have learned in the last year is to focus on the controllable. In a way it is something I have known for a while but not something I have vocalized before.

It used to be that I was obsessed with finding love. I looked outside myself to other people to find it. I needed their constant reassurance that I was loved, that I was good enough, and that I was worthy of being happy. To get all this I tried to do things that pleased others. I tried to get reactions from the people in my life to show they cared. I was focusing on the uncontrollable, other people. I could provide a stimulus and hope they reacted in the way I wanted them to but I could never be sure they would.

Now what I try to control is myself. By making changes in me, learning to find love inside myself for myself, I am not as dependent on external reassurance of affection. This has led me to being more confident and more worthy of the attention I receive. This change has happened because I am working on the things I can change, being a good student, being a hard worker, beginning to realize my dreams of becoming a writer. All the things, all this hard work on things I can actually affect has changed my life.

The energy I spent all those years trying to make people like me was wasted. I was trying to be the person they wanted me to be or the person that they would give attention to but I was not being myself.

The only actions we can control are our own. The only reactions we can control are our own. Striving to have others behave the way we want them to is wasted effort and wasted energy. Be who you are and you will attract people who will treat you the way you want to be treated. Control yourself so that you act as the person you want to be and you will be that person.