The Illusion of Control

Have you ever heard of the Serenity Prayer?  It's popular amongst 12 step programs.  It goes something along the lines of:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference

So often in life we find ourselves frustrated because life just isn't going the way we want it to go.  Sometimes it just seems no matter how hard we work to control things they never seem to turn out just right.  And that's the problem really.

Sure change is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we can control it.  When you break it down.  I mean REALLY break it down we can't control most things in life.  You can't control the colour of skin you were born with or the language you were taught as a child.  You couldn't control the continent or country you were born in or the type of family you were born into.

Parents raise their children, teaching them right from wrong, in hopes that they will "do what's right" (in other words: what they want).  But in the end you have to give your children up and hope you raised them right.

Although we may try to, we can control what happens tomorrow.  Meterologists try to predict the weather and investors try to predict the stock market but in the end it's really just a crap shoot.  Try as hard as we can't control our bodies aging.

We certainly can't control so-called "Acts of God" where you get struck by lightning, your car is hit by a meteor, or your house is destroyed by a tornado.

In fact, I would argue the ONLY thing we CAN control is how we react to the world around us.  We can't control how we got here.  We can't control what happens next.  All we can control are our own actions here and now.