Millions of terrifying possibilities you can’t control

If something helps you secure a measure of control in a world of chaos, then it’s worth doing.

Even if that sense of control is delusional, it still provides utility value.

Because feeling able to influence your reality in any way is deeply motivating and satisfying. My therapist once told me, control may be an illusion, but empowerment isn’t.

Meaning, if you believe that you have a role in determining your future, it doesn’t really matter if you’re right or wrong. If your expectations and efforts help to steer your fate in a positive direction, then that mindset is enough to fuel you to take useful actions on your own behalf. Those actions will bring you closer to the fulfillment you seek. Which tells your brain that when it does what the software tells it to do, it gets rewarded. And the cycle repeats until you win.

That’s empowerment. The ability to make decisions that influence the outcomes of your work. You should take it wherever you can get it.

Besides, what’s the alternative to this belief? Preoccupying yourself with the millions of terrifying possibilities you can’t control?

That’s no fun. It just puts you into a victim mindset.

It’s better to focus on the small handful of positive possibilities that you can control. It’s better to embrace the possibility of success, small as it may be, rather than the probability of failure.

During the first six month of the coronavirus pandemic, our collective sense of control hit record lows. It’s one of the reasons panic buying of toilet paper was so rampant in the first few weeks. Our perception of scarcity created feelings of insecurity, and that activated a prehistoric mechanism that triggered hoarding behaviors.

Honey, do you think two hundred rolls is enough? You’re right, better make it three hundred.

There was a study in a psychiatry journal that year which showed how during a crisis period, people generally like to control things because brings them some aspect of certainty. The phenomenon is explained as a remedial response to reduce fear and anxiety of losing control over the surrounding environment. Unsure when the pandemic would end, people were saving basic needs by purchasing as much toilet paper as possible is a shortcut to cope with the feeling of insecurity.

Now, personally, hoarding toilet paper wasn’t at the top of my shopping list. It’s cheaper to wipe your ass with junk mail if you ask me. But every family is different.

Point being, the panic buying still made sense to me. It was helping people secure a measure of control in a world of chaos.

Are you currently feeling like life is one of those bizarre dreams where you’re half awake, but not in control? It’s an awful, helpless feeling.

But when life’s restrictions start chipping away at your joy one by one, simply asking the following question will put the power back into your hands. Think of it as a nursery rhyme.

If you can’t choose where to go and what to do, how could you bring that joy to you?

With this question, instead of using worry as a tool for trying to predict the future, you engage with your life in whatever capacity you still can.

You access more choice to give yourself more freedom.

Remember, control may be an illusion, but empowerment isn’t.

Save your lies for when you need them most, and you might just make it out of this thing alive.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you focused on the small handful of positive possibilities you can control?