Crafting a life that matches your vision of principled living

There’s a significant difference
between being controlling and being in control of the quality of your life. 

One
is the obsessive need to exercise control over yourself and others and take
command of every situation. 

The other is the empowered efficacy of crafting a
life that matches your vision of principled living. 

One is an attempt to
dictate how everything is done around you through micromanaging perfectionism. 

The other is taking charge of our environment, aiming yourself in the direction
of your own creation and being smart about your relationship to meaning. 

I’m
reminded of a popular study on
temptation. Hoffman’s research showed that the people with the best
relationship with control were the ones who used their willpower less often. 

Instead of fending off one urge after another, he found, these people set up
their lives to minimize temptations. They play offense, not defense, using
their willpower in advance so that they avoid crises, conserve their energy and
outsource as much self control as they can. 

What a relief. Because ever since I
was young, I always thought there was something wrong with me. That my desire
to control the quality of my life and my characteristic unwillingness to
compromise was some kind of condition to be embarrassed about or medicated for. 

But it’s not. Look, life is chaotic and complicated. And so, I’m going to do
whatever I have to do to manage anxiety, set healthy boundaries, protect my
time, organize my daily existence and find vehicles through which I can exert
some measure of comfort over the course of my own lives. 

Otherwise I’m merely
floating through it, driven by the currents of the gods. No thanks. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

Are you a control freak, or are you simply in control of the quality of your life?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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Namaste.