I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
Truer words might never have been spoken. But is it all an illusion?
As a general rule, we are captivated by control. Ensconced in it. It’s why we wear our lucky jersey when we watch our favorite team play, why we head out to vote, why we lock our doors and park our vehicles in well-lit areas.
We are addicted to control because the unknown is disturbing. The possibility of disappointment or failure leaves us vulnerable, cold and unprotected. So we shield ourselves from danger by convincing ourselves we have a say.
We don’t.
Think about the first thing you did this morning. You opened your eyes to a brand new day, and you’ve likely felt in control of your actions ever since.
But what caused you to open your eyes? Was it the sun through the blinds? The beeping of an alarm clock. Some silent cue you can neither recall nor explain?
Truth is, you had no control over that primary action in your day. Something else — God, nature, circadian rhythm, who knows — something else was responsible.
And it goes far beyond that. We’re all riding on a spinning ball orbiting a blinding light, with no seat belt to protect us. As such, we have far less of a say in how factors of time, space, weather, physics or circumstance will alter our immediate destiny than we’d like to believe.
So we set up smoke screens. We jump into the Matrix and convince ourselves we’re at the helm, that our actions will lead to desired outcomes.
It’s comforting, reassuring — and preposterous.
Our one vote won’t swing the election. The jersey we wear when we watch our favorite team won’t help them win. And that safe, well-lit parking spot probably won’t protect your ride if the sky fills with hailstones.
Why must we spend all kinds of karmic energy trying to grasp control of these unknown variables, when it won’t do us a lick of good in the end?
There’s a better way. It requires us to accept the profound, and refocus our controlling tendencies in areas where we really can make a difference.
The kind of person we are. The decisions we make. The ways we act towards others. These are the factors we should be controlling; they can help us positively contribute to our society and improve our well-being.
Sure, shifting our focus in this direction means leaving the outcomes of many other events we care about to chance — and that’s scary. But we’ve never really had control of these independent variables anyway; we just blinded ourselves from the truth with the illusion that we did.
So let’s double down on controlling how we contribute to our family, community and society. For at the end of the day, the outcome of that pursuit is how we’ll be defined.
The ball’s in our court. It’s on us to pick it up.