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Today's
Meditation:
We
like to try to control situations and people because it
makes us feel safe. It doesn't make us safe,
though--it just
makes us feel safe. If we can control life, then
nothing out of the ordinary can happen, and nothing can
hurt us. If we control other people, then we can
maintain the status quo and not have to face changes that
may be difficult for us to handle. The desire to control
situations seems to be inherent in many of us, but even if
it's not inborn, most of us learn it as a strategy for
getting by in life.
But life is at its most dynamic when we don't try to
control it, when we accept it as it is and roll with
it. We are able to befriend life just as it is
and still live lives that are enjoyable and rich and full,
without trying to make things turn out the ways that we
think they should turn out. I've realized over the
years that life is much wiser than I, and that life will
take its course no matter how hard I try to control
it. My efforts at control cause me only frustration
and tension, but when I accept what life brings I find
that I can deal with it well, and I don't have to live
with the tension that my attempts at control used to bring
me.
I like the idea of befriending life. I like the idea
of letting life be what it is and dealing with it on its
terms, rather than trying to dictate the terms of my
relationship with life. Of course, there are many
things that should be controlled-- no one wants
someone driving down a residential street at 80 miles an
hour, or driving drunk-- but those things are pretty
self-evident. While I still sometimes give advice,
for example, I've given up doing so for the most part
because I've realized that often, my advice was an attempt
to get someone to do something the way I thought they
should, rather than finding their own ways of dealing with
situations. That's a level of control that's not at
all healthy.
I'm not the manager of the world, and it does me a world
of good to not try to manage the world, but to meet it on
its terms and learn what it has to offer. After all,
it doesn't feel good to bang our heads against walls.
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