The longer I live, the more I realize that peace comes to me when I let go, not when I hold on.  The thing to let go of that causes the resulting feeling of peace the most?  Control.  Ya, we human beings hate that don’t we?  Nevertheless, that’s our topic today, so let’s dive in.

Control is, by and large, an illusion.  What can you actually control?  Your environment?  Partially.  You can choose whether you live in a cold or hot climate, perhaps what part of the world, but no matter where you live, there are dangers to consider.  Tornadoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes…we always live somewhere potentially unsafe.

How about other people?  We can try to control and manipulate others, in fact there are books out there with titles such as “How to Influence Others”, and “Get Anyone To Do Anything.”  Ultimately, we can only influence others with their collusion, and when they figure out what is happening, they don’t like it very much and it is destructive to relationships.  So controlling others doesn’t work very well in the long term.

How about our bodies?  We don’t have complete control of our behaviors or emotions, but partially.  Physically, we can control if we pick up or put something down, but we cannot control if we have a stroke and lose control of our arm.  We can eat healthy or drive safely, but we still can’t control whether we get in an accident or develop cancer.

Yuck, right?  Starting to make sense why we don’t like to think about being out of control.  Earthquakes, unsafe people, cancer?  Pretty scary to think about all the bad things that could happen.

Finding peace is a paradox.  We think we’ll find peace by controlling more and more, but we actually find peace by confronting the myth that we have control over much of anything.  Time to leave that up to God, the Universe, Fate, or whatever word you might like to use for it.  That’s what brings peace.  Rock the things you do have control over, and let go of the rest.

Thanks for reading my work…and, I apologize that Frozen is now in your head.  My bad.