That 'CONTROL FREAK' Malaise

 

Way beyond any debate, we humans long to feel in control although I'm sure my statement could lead to heckles here and there.  BUT the very existence of the term 'CONTROL FREAK' itself indicates our need for CONTROL WHICH sometimes can go too way far.  BUT psychologists insists that humans naturally want to feel that they're steering their own ship [YES, I agree, for a big chunk in my life, I also thought along those lines].  The scientific explanation here is that human beings have that deep-seated desire for certainty and CONTROL.  NOT to be defensive, some studies even showed that sense of autonomy seems to be the #1 contributor to happiness📗📙📘

YES, perhaps we should NOT be surprised then that some measures of our mental health seem to be heading in the wrong direction these years.  BUT given the fact that this world we live in looks unlikely to grow less crazy anytime soon, does that mean we're doomed to be miserable until our lives feel more controllable?  According to recent researches, WHILE we may NOT always be able to CONTROL events, we certainly can CONTROL our reaction to them.  It's HOW we contain the UNCONTROLLABLES💥💥💥

YES dude, there is a world of difference in our own happiness despite all the UNCONTROLLABLES that would pop-up in our lives, here and there.  A common scenario across all cultures in fact is that clash of personalities [WHICH I personally witnessed multiple times in the past].  At the end of the day, the hands-down winner in those 'clash of titans' is that cool and level-headed fellow WHO managed to handle and contain things, deftly handling the situation instead of it turning from bad to worse.  NOT a tough act to follow💚💛💜

Experts counsel us that there are two kinds of CONTROL, namely, that primary CONTROL WHICH happens WHEN we can actually CONTROL events and the secondary CONTROL and that's WHEN we DON'T and simply CAN'T CONTROL events BUT here's the huge BUT.  BUT we can CONTROL HOW we think about and respond to them.  We then exercise secondary CONTROL WHENEVER we reframe a failure as a learning experience.  Unsurprisingly, in multiple clinical studies, people love to have primary CONTROL of events BUT they also showed that secondary CONTROL can go a long way to promote feelings of both moment-to-moment happiness in life✅✅✅

Our takeaway:  A key lesson I learnt over and over again is the undeniable fact that we can always CONTROL HOW we tell our story and if this sounds familiar to you, that may be because it is far from similar results.  The thing is, IF and WHEN we CAN'T steer events, we can always steer HOW we think about them, looking and anticipating even for unexpected positives, ways we've grown.  Ouch, that CONTROL FREAK malaise😡😡😡