Why Letting Go of Control Was the Best Thing for Me

I had never thought of myself as a controller.

Controlling personalities always had negative connotations attached to them, like my Dad; he was a controller. He thought he was wrong once, but it turns out that he was mistaken. Yeah, my Dad had his life set up right the way that he wanted; he was in control and there was nothing anyone could say to him otherwise. He’d manipulate situations by lying through his back teeth and win people over by showering them in hard cash, or alcohol if that was their tipple.

I was no damn controller. Not like dad.

He was a pure arsehole, there’s no way I could be like that.

Later in life, I found that I was just like him.

After many years of introspection, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone is controlling in some form or other. Some to a great extent, others to a lesser degree. I’m controlling in some form, I’d have to be otherwise people would dictate my life for me. I have to have some form of control over what I do or say to people else the world would be a mess.

I’d like to state that we’re not effectively letting go of control, we are disowning the negative forms of control, you know? Trying to control that which we cannot because it’s not within our power to do so, but trying to make an attempt at controlling it anyway. That’s what we need to let go of.

An example would be getting angry and frustrated at the price of Bitcoin going down and ploughing all of your savings into it to hopefully push the price up. It might work for a moment, maybe, but then the market will continue on its journey without your intervention. You’ve just done something unnecessary to alleviate your crazy feelings of control, which in essence, had zero effect anyway.

My Mum was the absolute Queen of trying to control things that she could not.

As a young kid, I was on a path for semi-greatness. I was on the Scotland golf squad, yes, the literal national team; under-14’s I think. I was a straight A* student and I was headed off to a selection of great Universities had I have stayed that path I was headed on, but, rebellion struck.

My step-dad died and I went off the rails. For a good 10 years. Mum tried everything, from kicking me up the arse to keeping me inside the house for three months, but, if she had just ‘accepted’ these were the way things were and just given me a hug and told me that she loved me, I’d perhaps had calmed down.

Kids destinations are often of their own choosing, the less that you try to control that then the better you will have it as a parent. My Mum had SO much planned for me and I achieved zero of it. Alas, in a roundabout way I’m living my dream as we speak. THIS is what I’ve always wanted to do, it’s probably why I’m such a good writer. Boast, brag, smelling my own farts.

I was the same, though. Nothing wound me up the wrong way more when the reality that I had in my own headspace didn’t pan out in the same way as it did in the real world. I’d often get bitterly mad and sometimes out of control when things didn’t go my way.

Call it selfish if you may, that was part of it anyway, being an only child and having the sole attention of both parents. I didn’t like things not going my way and I’d spend hours trying to bend the world into my reality, and if I couldn’t, well, my life wasn’t worth living anymore.

It took longer to realize that everything that’s not personal to me, I can’t mold or change. The world just exists with or without me, and, shit happens. When it dawned on me that I was making things hard for myself by pushing against the grain of the world it became such a freeing experience. I no longer spent time acting upon things that really wouldn’t move with or without my intervention regardless. When my manager at work left for another job, it hit us all hard, but we had to live with it because it was her decision. It’s not as if I could have put a gun to her head.

Since my realization life has been immensely easier for me. I no longer try and change what is set in stone, I wait for things to happen and then act upon them in the best way that I can. I’ve stopped trying to predict the future and getting bent out of shape when nothing happens, and just take life as it comes and enjoy it for the raw, simplicity that it is.