Into The Maze: You Don't Have Control

I saw a post today on LinkedIn that inspired me to write this article. I saw a post about all of the things in our lives that we could control. The post listed 10 or 20 different things that within my life I should be able to control. But here's the thing, I didn't agree with a single one of the things listed. it reminds me of what a lot of when I see posts about love and what love is and what it takes to make a relationship work. I find those kinds of posts and that kind of content to be really dangerous. so often I come across things that I simply deem not to be true. I simply try to respect and acknowledge that I can only understand my personal truth, that truth is not exclusive just to me, but now I'm going to explain why I don't agree or like or why I try to stay away from using the word control.

Over the last several years I have been fortunate enough to have a great therapist who I speak with every 3 weeks who has been a tremendous influence on my life. there are many things she's helped me realize from a biological, spiritual, habitual, and even from my perspective vantage point. One of the common thread that she's had to really help me with is understanding the danger of when I use the word control or when I imply that I want control or that I have control or that I can have control. It's very similar to the way I've tried to use the word perfection and pursue perfection in my life. Most of us understand why perfection and the pursuit of perfection is silly. But very few of us realize how dangerous it is to pursue control.

Think about it, do you really have control over what other people do? Do you really have control over the health of your partner? Do you really have control over the actions you're going to take tomorrow or if you arrive to work on time? How much of your day doesn't go as planned? How much of your year doesn't go as planned? how many things on a week to week basis do you say you're going to do and don't deliver on. really, what do you really have control over? Sure, I have control over the fact that 90% of the time I will get up at a certain time and I will exercise like I say I'm going to exercise and eat the foods I'm going to eat but I don't always have control over that. Especially as I age, now ankles hurt sometimes randomly. Now parents get sick. now I get sick more. now I get called into a work call sooner than I expected.

So yeah, I feel really bad and have compassion for those trying to control things. I'm surrounded by it. I see it in stores, I see it on social media, not that I'm on social media. I see it in the news, I see it in the how people say what other people should do or should believe. I see it in how my fellow leaders and managers within Industries believe they can control the outcomes and how they can control the behaviors of the masses by shifting processes or improving training or by switching out people. The reality is is you can't control anything, especially other people. you can't even control yourself. If people could control themselves we wouldn't need 150,000 help self-help books, we wouldn't need others to hold us accountable. The reality is is most people have very little control over what they do, and when I see a post that tells them that they should have control over those things it makes those people feel bad for themselves. and I want those people to know that that post and those saying you can control things, I find that to be nonsense. You can have influence over things. you can increase the probability of things. but pursuing control is nonsensical. Do you even want control? Over the years I've heard Tony Robbins talk about something like this, what we want is to be surprised, we want to expand, we don't want control of things. if we had control of everything it would be boring.

Ultimately, even though this particular article is more of a philosophical discussion than a professional one I think it's worth highlighting here that I feel that a lot of the blunders within the Agile industry or even the issues we're facing economically are great reminders of how little control we have. People are losing their jobs. Budgets are being cut. Three or four years worth of planning is being reverted back to what worked in the past. I am always amused by how often people take credit for the success around them thinking that it had something to do with them, when all along it was the environment around them that created that success. They begin to mistake their own thoughts and what they controlled and how that was what created the success, and then surely when the environment around them shifts and everything goes down they can't fight it. They can't beat it. Now all of that cleverness and intelligence that they thought serve them becomes useless. Maybe, just maybe it's because all along they never really had the answers, maybe because they never had control, maybe there's nothing intrinsically special about them in those particular ways. Maybe they're just like everything else, everything has seasons and cycles and using force on anything is utterly exhausting. Even if someone like Elon Musk had started Tesla in 1987 it obviously would not have gotten off the ground. Amazon wouldn't have worked any other time than now. It's not just about what you do, it's when you do it. You might have some control over the 'when.'

Everything I'm stating is just my personal truth, any and all can see things differently and I welcome and respect that. I have found Liberation through not pursuing control. Through releasing things. Through letting go. I wanted to negate what I saw today online which was saying that we have control. I don't think you do. We don't even have control if you wake up tomorrow.