The Illusion of Control

Today I feel at peace. Productive, but calm and trying to do one thing at a time and with full attention. It has made even mundane tasks feel somewhat rewarding, or, actually, surprisingly more than somewhat rewarding.

Yesterday I spent some time thinking about the illusion of control and how that works with my desire for control. To that end this morning I thought about my backpack in highschool. I carried this bag everywhere. Some of the things I carried to school, to a friends house, to the movies were bandaids, snacks, playing cards, matches, emergency candles, a change of underwear, pads, and a change of shoes. I was always somewhat living in a potential dangerous future scenario. Prepared for many possible contingencies. Prepared. Ready...Anticipating problems. Sometimes oddly pleased when problems emerged because I was prepared to handle them. 

I have, in small and large ways, throughout my life continued carrying this “bag” and I am ready to put it down. Not because I think it is problematic in and of itself being prepared, but because my fixation on having it and panic around potentially not being prepared for a new possible future scenario keeps my attention tuned to the future and not where I want it, on this moment right now.

I have today and I have spent far too many todays focusing on preparedness for tomorrow and as I reflect here some 25 years later I see that many of those tomorrows never even came. And, even if they did, I sold myself short by implying that I could not have handled it without any preparation. 

What it did provide me was the illusion of control. 

And it fed an underlying belief that I am actively working to dismantle: Things don’t work out, and I should be prepared for that. 

Sometimes though, things do work out. Sometimes I am surprised by and unprepared for something and figure it out. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and that is ok too. Actually, I survive and those around me do too.  Even, beautifully, sometimes people in my life surprise me and figure it out and my heart swells. 

Beauty and joy can and do happen. Kindness does happen. Mistakes also do happen and sadness also. These are all ok and I don’t need to prepare for any. I am already ready for them and I don’t need my backpack to get through it.