Do you really want to be in control?

Hello everyone,

I hope y’all have had a good weekend.

I was listening to some podcasts and talks this past week and thought to share some of things that really stood out to me.

First off, control makes us feel powerful but it’s really destabilising. We like the idea of being in control because in some weird way, we feel like if we only have to count on ourselves then we won’t let ourselves down. At least, I know that’s how it is for me most of the time. I think that being in control means I don’t have to worry about other people letting me down. But being in control introduces an entirely new problem… what happens if you fail? If you forget? If you underperform? Everything falls apart. I think a huge part of my renewed perspective on life is understanding that I was not made to handle being in control which is why I always break down when I try. It’s also a huge part of my relationship with God because understanding that my ability alone does not determine the outcome has given me so much peace. All I can really do is my best, but that’s all God expects from me and that is a freeing truth.

Next up, we idolise our problems. I always feel some type of way when I hear things like this because I just think about how sometimes we go through really hard things and we don’t think about them constantly because we want to… it’s just how it is. But is it really? Recently, I was getting really stressed about my relationship with someone. I kept wondering how my actions would be interpreted and kept on using past occurrences to limit the way I interacted with this person. That might sound almost like a good thing, but it wasn’t because I would spend hours before and after talking to this person analysing my actions and trying to determine how I was perceived (not that all of my effort ever actually gained anything). Anyway, I was talking to my mum and trying to explain why my feelings were valid and she was trying to find solutions. The summary of this isn’t that your feelings are invalid, but I definitely know that in my case, I was giving my feelings too much control, almost as if I wanted to continue to stay in that place of fear and insecurity. I know that that was not what I wanted, but it was almost comfortable to keep ruminating over the problems without doing anything to solve them, mostly because the solutions involved me stepping out of my comfort zone. We won’t always be able to completely turn around our situations by showing up; other players might be involved. But if showing up and trying is all we can do, let’s at least do that. A good relationship like all other things will never be developed if you only try when you feel like. So while we need to unpack and understand our feelings, we cannot let them control us completely.

Yesterday I watched this amazing talk that was focusing on truth and how nowadays it’s as if we call things ‘our truth’ to remove others people’s access to the conversation and their ability to argue with it, all so that we don’t have to face different views. I’m a strong believer in ‘the’ truth and I don’t think it’s subjective. And even though we inevitably interpret things through our experiences, I don’t think that changes what the actual truth is. I’m also a strong believer in conversation and in hearing people out. Because the truth is (see my pun;)) the truth tends to be uncomfortable. It doesn’t take into account our experiences or our preferences making it probably the most objective thing in the world. And contrary to subconscious popular opinion, popularity does not determine what the truth is because we as a human race are more than capable of believing lies all together. So my aim in life is to be inquisitive and to question things and expose myself to different points of views because ultimately, if I truly know what I believe, hearing other perspectives does me no harm; it just expands the situations and experiences that my beliefs take into account.

God bless.

Dera