Control
Perhaps you've seen some of the wise sayings online about when we finally cease trying to control, the 'enlightenment' finally arrives.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately has been how much suffering there has been in my life when I have tried to control things outside of my sphere. And how much those I love suffer when they try.
The Past and the Future
There are good reasons why so much of science fiction revolves around people being magically able to travel into the past and/or the future. Instinctively we understand that we can only be in the present. But we fight it. Hard.
Unhappiness and unwillingness to accept the Now that I am living motivate me either to fixate on what I or others have done in the past, trying to understand how I could have altered things for a better result, or to fixate on the future, how my life will be much better tomorrow, next week, or next year once I put this or that other measure in place. New Year’s Resolutions, anyone?
The past is wholly unalterable. I can, however, and this is really important, learn more about how I think and feel about it and how it affects choices I make, and with insight and practice, over time, can come to a better place of peace about what has happened as well as a more skilful approach to decision-making as well as how I interact with others. This is a lot of what happens through therapy, spiritual direction, mindfulness practice, and other forms of inner work, because coming to terms with the past, both what I have done and what has happened in my life, has a huge role in gradually healing traumas, finding a place of equanimity, and living from the True Self rather than the false self.
The future is not fixed but it is utterly beyond my control. Yes, what I choose to do now will have an effect, but it will do so in ways I cannot predict, because of the vast multiplicity of factors beyond my control as well as my perception and understanding.
I was speaking with a friend yesterday about the concept of the benevolent dictator. It is flawed, among other reasons, because limited perception, knowledge, and insight means a ruler will do things that lead to disastrous unintended consequences, and because power has an inherently corrupting force.
Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be here better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone
I don’t know what exactly was behind this Fleetwood Mac song. It seems to be that someone was deep in the suffering of regret about the past and someone else wanted to help them by urging them to fixate on the future. Probably very well intentioned, but simply trying to forget about the past doesn’t stop how it continues to affect what I think, feel, say, and do in the present. It also doesn’t stop the suffering that all of those continue to engender both in my life and in the lives of those around me.
Trying to live in the future is just a form of emotional and/or spiritual bypassing. It cannot be done.
Will tomorrow be better? Maybe? Perhaps you are familiar with the old Tao parable about what is good or bad. Again, because of human limitations on perception, knowledge, and understanding (I know I for one tend to vastly underestimate how much I do not know, perceive, and understand), my tendency is to judge each event as good or bad without properly seeing it in the context of all that has happened before it and all that will happen in the future. So who can say?
What Others Will Do
Technically what others will do is a subset of the uncontrollable future, but because it is an enormous part of human suffering to try to exert control in this realm, perhaps it warrants teasing apart and having a look at it separately.
I know this is often attempted seemingly with the very best of intentions. I was musing last night before falling asleep how attempts to fix those around me have been in play since I was a young child.
I have liked to think about it as motivated by wanting to help others. That might be in the mix, but honestly the underlying motivations are far more self-protective. The abandoned baby and then toddler needed to come up with a means of being safe, of staying connected to first mom and sisters and then other significant others, especially close friends, romantic partners, and my children, and so decided that the best ways would be to keep myself totally indispensable in their lives and to make sure they do things that are helpful to me.
This human tendency is further exacerbated by the fact that parents are expected to try to exert control over the actions of their children. Leaders are supposed to direct and inspire those for whom they are responsible. So societal forces come into play as well.
The pattern continues as a motivating force in my life to this day. The difference is that now I am aware of it and other not-so-benign reasons for my focus on wanting to help people, and I am learning to back off and accept that people will do what they want and need to do, regardless of my intervention. I have slowly over the years become less panicked about the possibility of being abandoned by those I love, and more intrigued with what they decide to do, whether it was my idea or not.
What do I know, anyway?
Control and ‘Enlightenment’
Adyashanti is only one of many teachers of nonduality who sees a direct connect between giving up control and so-called enlightenment, or spiritual freedom.
This means, of course, and this might sound shocking, giving up control in the present. Not just trying to control things outside of my locus of control, world events, what others think or do, but even trying to control what I believe to be within my locus of control.
Imagine two concentric circles. The outer ring represents everything beyond your influence - other people's choices, global events, or even the weather. The inner circle? That's your domain. It's smaller, but it's mighty. This is where your power lies.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to love in this Substack post. I do think it’s life-changing to truly understand what is outside our control.
However, I think there is a tendency to over-estimate the control I have over:
my thoughts and actions
what I give my energy to
how I speak to myself
how I spend my free time
the goals I set
my boundaries
how I handle challenges.
Why is that?
You see, all of these are driven by my self-understanding, how much I perceive, my personal traumas, automatic tendencies that have been built over years or even decades by habits I have formed, my personality, and a host of other factors.
Inner work and the building of new and healthier habits can over time affect all of these.
But it’s easy to underestimate the amount of time it takes for neural plasticity and re-training, and what it takes to ‘turn the ship’, as it were.
Just as it is sub-optimal to give energy to trying to change the past or the future, I believe that trying to change thinking, feeling, self-talk etc can involve a lot of unnecessary suffering.
Am I saying it’s not good even to try? I should just give up?
No, not really. Inner work is a good thing. Contemplation is healing. Journalling and other forms of writing can be really therapeutic. There are many things I can do and am doing each day that are building a healthier way for me to be in the world.
What I am trying to say is sometimes people try directly to exert control on things that are deeply ingrained in who they are, why they do what they do, and what they do, and those attempts can also engender a lot of suffering, because they are not ready to be change.
Turning the ship happens slowly. Think of how many years or decades it took for the patterns and habits you currently have to develop. Those don’t change overnight.
Do I have enough insight to know how I need to change my thinking? I’m not sure I do.
Sometimes I will look up after beginning to write here and be mildly surprised two hours have gone by since I began to meditate and write. Or I get into working on something, or looking at social media, and hours vanish.
We live in a society where productivity and progress are valued highly. I think they are valued in many ways more highly than the humans who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of all that supposed productivity and progress.
What do you need to do and be today? I don’t know.
Shall we find out?