Dealing with What We Can’t Control

This may sound depressing at first but the vast majority of things in this world we have no control over. We cannot make people get their stories in on dead line, we cannot make people act the way we want them to act and we cannot stop sorrow from entering our lives.

When the uncontrollable variables of the world enter our lives we have to have strategies for dealing with them.

Know where you are going: The first strategy is to have a plan. Knowing where you want to be when you come out of a situation lets you guide your responses to bring you closer to where you want to be. It is like a ship in a storm, there is a heading you want to stick to but the wind may blow you off course. As you sail through the wind and waves you try your best to correct the course but when the wind stops and the sea calms you may still have some corectining to do, but at least you know where you are. You will know where to find land, provtions and repairs.

Expect people to be who they are: Most of our disappointment in people comes from expecting them to act the way we would act rather than the way they would act. We hope that people will notice things that we think are obvious or feel the things that we feel, but they do not. We need to be students of those around us so we can predict how they will react and expect them to be themselves. This does not mean we cannot give them encouragement to act differently or stress the importance of deadlines, but it does mean we shouldn't expect them to be someone they are not.

Accept some things are beyond our control: When we try to control and micromanage every aspect of our lives we wear ourselves out. We need to accept that not everything will go acordining to plan and save our energy for the important tasks. Knowing that we do not have to deal with every fire that erupts, that it is not our job to do everything, can alow us to roll with the punches, adapt and change and move fluidly through life.