Confusions With Controls

 

Of all topics to thread on, I'd guess 'CONTROL' is one of the most talked about topics [over and over again].  Kinda boring?  NOT really if we can dive-in at least for today.  The very existence of the term 'CONTROL FREAK' indicates our innate need for control can go too far and beyond.  BUT the expers tell us that we humans naturally want to to feel they're steering their own ship.  To quote author Raj Raghunathan, 'HUMAN BEINGS HAVE A DEEP-SEATED DESIRE FOR CERTAINTY AND CONTROL'.  BUT there's a glimmer of hope these days because there is a recent study showing a semblance of that sense of autonomy being the #1 contributor that makes us achieve HAPPINESS💜💛💚

Perhaps then, we should NOT be that surprised that so many measures of our collective mental health seem to be heading in the wrong direction these days.  BUT given the fact that the world looks unlikely to grow less crazy anytime soon, does that mean that we're doomed to be miserable until our lives feel more controllable?  Recent researches however, have disproved this.  And WHILE we may NOT always be able to control events, we certainly can CONTROL our reaction to them, and that can make a world of difference simply based on the fact that there's the primary CONTROL [WHICH we are in CONTROL] and secondary CONTROL [that is beyond our powers]💧💧💧

WHILE it's a foregone conclusion that we humans really prefer primary CONTROL, studies showed that secondary CONTROL can go a long way to promote feelings of both moment-to-moment HAPPINESS and even overall life satisfaction.  WHICH reminds me of that ageless Frank Sinatra song, 'MY WAY' WHERE a man is looking back on his life and he generally feels satisfaction with HOW things turned out BUT it WASN'T all HAPPINESS because apparently, there is a richer notion of WHAT it means to live a good life💥💥💥

Surely, we can easily agree that that's an attitude that DOESN'T downplay the negative experiences of life and yet it allows for a different kind of engagement with life so that reappraisal and learning can occur and lead to much greater satisfaction.  This gets at WHAT secondary CONTROL is all about, being able to fit one's experiences into that much broader narrative of life.  In fact, even events may often get out of our hands, WHICH, in other words, it is HOW we interpret them instead😡😡😡

Our takeaway:  Much as there are many facets of our life WHERE secondary CONTROLS limit WHAT we can do, many studies tell us that we can always CONTROL HOW we tell our own narrative, our own story.  And if this sounds familiar to you, that may be because it is far from the only study coming into that similar conclusion.  OR perhaps, we might recognize this as reminiscent of advices dispensed by many wisdom tradtions, from Buddhism and over to even Alcoholics Anonymous.  At one time OR another, pretty much all of us have been told that IF we CAN'T change something, we should change HOW we think about that something.  Trying to CONTROL WHAT happens might be a recipe for stress and disappointment BUT hey, that's NOT the only kind of CONTROL open to us, right?  WHERE we CAN'T steer events, we can steer HOW we think about them.  There you go, our CONTROLS and CONTROLS dilemma!!!