In this day and age "taking control of things" is a term that emphasizes someones strength and the power of their willfulness. For sometime now I have been questioning whether this is a term that has a realistic base or something that we use to make ourselves feel better or perhaps a little bit of both.
My experience of things is that, we are never fully really in control of anything. This includes our own selves.
If I were in control or am able to take control of things, then the first thing I would like to do so is in terms of my health. Unfortunately I have not had a luxury of being able to stay well for a very long time. I find that when I begins to feel a remote sense of physical wellness, I get sick all over. It does not matter how well I eat, how much I exercise or meditate, I cannot really get my body to behave the way I would like it to. Its very disheartening really. I feel utterly out of control within my own body. I find the same with my thoughts. I could sit in meditation for days and not be able to experience the joy arising out of one pointedness. I could sit for 15 minutes and suddenly there is it. Such Yo-Yo mind. Again I would love to have control over my mind but to this date not been successful at it.
So when people tell me that they are fully "in control" or "take things in to their control" I find that to be quite humorous. For the simple argument that if I cannot have control over my own body and thoughts, how could I possibly have control over things that are external to me. But for some reasons this does not hit home for most of us.
I have begun to question why this is so. Its a false sense of hope that we carry with us. For what? I realise that it gives us comfort, a sense of security. Control gives us a sense of security that the ground beneath us is not going to shift all of a sudden. I can understand that. I mean I myself don't like to believe that I'm not in control. I find that I always have a need to feel as if I am in control.
I find that I look into the future and try to iron out things that might go wrong, or try to minimizes the discomforts that might arise out of something that I see as a possible threat. I also find that when I think of my past, I would like iron out things in the past in a way that it makes best sense for me. But in both situations I am exerting "control". But I know that no matter how much time I spent trying to control these events, especially the ones in the past, it does not change the events. With great patience I have applied this to my future as well. I have spent trying to iron out the possible wrinkles in my future. I would have spent hours and days of thinking of possible ways but only to find that my future isn't what I expected it to be. Therefore I am taken by surprise sometimes to my great joy and other times to my great sadness.
So it unlikely how much we would like to believe that we can take things into control, that we can actually do so. Perhaps for a small amount of time or for something small. But in the greater scheme of things, if I cannot control my own body and thoughts it's highly unlikely that I would do so with something outside of me.
I'm slowly getting to a place where I'm able to let things unfold to their own set of circumstances. It's not an easy thing for me. My natural tendency is to control things to my advantage, so I think. But I have seen over and over again, the suffering I have go through only to find that I really haven't been able to change things after having put so much effort. So, now I am practicing letting things happen. Letting things take their own course. But its hard. It makes me wait on things. I'm not used to waiting on things. I'm used to making things happen. Waiting feel stupid really and its like an itch that one need to scratch. But there have been situations that I have been able to wait on things.
I have found that it gives a great sense of relief to be able to do that. I find that I'm not pressed by circumstances around me. I feel that I'm in control by allowing things to happen in their own way. Its quite ironic. Very counter intuitive. But it works. But you need to be patient. It also doesn't mean that you stay very passive. Oh No. Its quite contrary to being passive. But it is also quite different to being active. Its a place that I find is between passive and active. As I;m writing this blog I remembered something I had read in the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. If my memory serves me well, I think the author said "responsiveness' likes in between Passive and Active.
Now that makes sense altogether. Responding sounds like a space that I find now. It's not that I'm being passive not going all out to take charge but it's waiting so that when things happen you are in the ideal place to do something about it. I think this is the same thing that we are taught in "mindfulness". When we are mindful we are in the present. The present is constantly moving and instead going back or going forward you are moving with the sequence of events as is it happening. It is more likely that you are in touch with whats happening right now. So how you respond to them becomes more sensible. It's like hitting a tennis ball or a cricket ball. You need to see it i n motion. Not something that came out of the hand of the bowler neither something that you have hit according to your plan. It's something you watch from the moment the ball is realased from the bowlers hand until it hits the bat. You need to watch the trajectory so you know best how to hit it. Do you go defensive or do you hammer it hard or do you simply let it go. If you cannot see the trajectory that the ball is in, you will not understand whether the ball has a spin on it, whether its swinging it out or in. and if you don't know this how you respond to the ball will be wrong. You might get out. But instead you watch it and respond to it as you see it the chances are that you will have read the ball well and therefore hammered it for a six.
Anyway my point is that, its important to stay in the present and not get caught up trying to get control over things. This makes us lost in our past and or our future. But instead if you stay in the present with a keen eye on whats going on, your responses will be that much more accurate and your results better than ever. SO, I think we need to allow things to take their own course and watch. Only if there is a need to interject ourselves in it should we do so. IF not we might end up making a bigger mess. Why not we let things be instead of taking control. Might be a better way to move into the future with that.
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