There are 7 things that are under our voluntary control, most of them inside of us and in our minds.
I will list them here:
- 1-You can control the way you think.
- 2-You can control your attitudes towards what you think, feel, and experience.
- 3-You can control your behavior, your responses and your actions in the world.
- 4-You are the one who can say yes or no as to what goes and does not go in your life. To some extent, this ability defines whether you will take action or coward before a challenging situation, where you will live, and what you will do with your everyday life to make a living.
- 5-You can also control your habits (good ones and bad ones) if you make a constant and strong effort at self-disciplining early on in life. Remember that bad habits are very easy to acquire (addictions) and hard to kick. They are repetitive self-destructive behaviors (usually oral activities) that produce immediate gratification.
- Good habits must be cultivated if you want to be in control of your life. These good habits take time, effort, and much work to acquire. They are the result of repeated long-term disciplined decisions. And–unlike the bad ones–you do not gather their fruits immediately nor are their benefits so intense as the former.
- Healthy habits have a lot more to do with the ability to say no to immediate pleasures, to avoid following the herd and conform to society, and with the decision to live your life without indulging in excessive pleasures (that are addictive).
- Then, beware of what gives you too much pleasure, you will become addicted to it.
What is definitely beyond your control in a nutshell?
1-Your history, your background, your biology, your race, you ethnicity, your biological sex, skin color, eye color, and physical make up (how tall you are and the like).
2-Most people around you and their behavior. This includes your children, parents, significant other, or boss, if you have any. People go crazy and they make their lives miserable trying to control other people’s behaviors (especially wives in their attempts at reforming their espouses and jealous men who can go to the extreme of incurring in domestic violence to control their significant others). This is the result of the expectations we constantly place on others. Ultimately, people never behave as we expect them to and then we feel frustrated, disappointed, and unloved. We may suffer less if we expect nothing.
3-Most world events, whether they are natural or man-made phenomena, such as global warming, storms, floods, fires, and other forms of natural and or manmade disasters.
4-The political events in your country and the actions and laws established by your government
5-The way the economy goes, the stock market, and its impact on you 401 K
6-Serious illnesses and death. You can work on prevention and leading a healthy lifestyle but that is about it. The impossible can take the form of the incurable diseases of those around us we love dearly; or it can be their recalcitrant addiction, their declining health, their crippling disabilities–or their death. The impossible can show up as a chronic disease of disability we have to deal with in ourselves or in our children for a lifetime.
7-Ultimately, the insane behaviors coming from your espouse, parents, children, and other members of your family and friends. They may be what you see them do by by drinking, smoking, using drugs, exposing themselves to diseases through unrestrained sexual behavior, being addicted to porn, or taking excessive risks. Or it can be their lack of love for you as they never even pick up the phone to check whether you are alive or dead.
Remember:
There is no perfect solution to these problems that life poses to our existences as humans. They are an inherent part of the human condition. Life, however, does not care about our opinions about what happens, whether we think it is “fair” or not–or whether an event should be happening at this particular time.
So, let it be clear that the suffering I am describing in this post is not “neurotic suffering” (excessive, self-generated psychological suffering due to faulty thinking, your own inhibitions, or your personality problems). This other forms of suffering are instead the result of genuine pain caused by unavoidable real events in our lives we all have to deal with regardless of who we are.
In summary:
1-Nobody is spared death. This applies to ourselves and ALL others including your pets.
2-Nobody is spared the loss of others. So, nobody goes through life being spared from grief.
3-Nobody escapes aging and the diseases and disabilities that come along with the passing of time.
What are we to do with these impossible situations that life presents us with? What is the best way to deal with them with the least amount of suffering?
1-First we have to recognize these realities as an integral part of what life is about and accept them as such. Positive thinking does not help in these situations; neither does the denial of tragic events that will sooner or later take place in our lives. We have to accept the loss or the catastrophic event as they are.
We may cry and mourn about them in the process. That is OK. The secret is not to wallow in misery or hold on to the pain indefinitely.
2- By definition, we have to accept that many things cannot be controlled or altered in spite of our best efforts. This is as true in the 21st century and it was 2000 years ago in the times of Jesus or 2600 years ago in the times of the Buddha. These unchangeable events leave all of us with a feeling of impotence and helplessness. This feeling needs to be replaced with fostering community in pain and with a calm acceptance of what is and a resignation to our fate.
3-For believers, most religions are strong sources of consolation to deal with those aspects of life that have no cure. For that reason, participating in an organized religion and having a spiritual life of your own will help immensely. These beliefs will not save you from experiencing these painful experiences of life, but they will offer you consolation in times of hardship or grief. And they will also help you by putting meaning into them into a larger scheme of things and offering you faith, hope and the support of a community of believers.
How to be proactive about the impossible misfortune
1-You should always ask yourself the question: Is this something I can do anything about?
2-Is this situation or event controllable in any way? If the answer is yes, you should muster all the courage and do what you need to do without delay. If the answer is no, then fighting on against the circumstances will only make matters worse. That oppositional stance will lead you to exhaustion and ineffectiveness. In that case you should accompany the process on a day by day basis with resignation.
3-This realization of impossibility calls for an attitude of “radical acceptance of what is.” This means accepting what life deals us without complaint. It also means aiming for a Taoist attitude of “going along with the process.” As the ancient Chinese master Lao Tzu taught: This is “the Tao’s way” (going with the flow of things day after day) rather than trying in futility to control them.
4-Keep in mind that as bad and bereaved as you may feel today, time heals all wounds. Tomorrow there will be another day and your wounds will heal with time. If you hang on and not give up, the day will come when that unbearable grief, that deep pain–or that irreparable loss you are now experiencing–will only be a scar in your psyche.
Remember: Nothing, good or bad, lasts forever. As the Dhammapada reminds us; “All Things Must Pass.” We humans are a very resilient species. We always find a way to survive even the worst of catastrophic experiences. When we let time do its job and more so when we are able to leave painful memories behind not hanging onto them for dear life. As they teach in AA, “Let go and let God.”
5-Remember these final words always from the Argentine epic Martin Fierro. In this epic story written in verse, the Wiseman “Old Vizcacha” gave these words of advice to the young gaucho Martin Fierro to diminish his suffering in life:
“To know how to forget the bad things in life is another way of having good memory.”
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I hope to see you in my next post,
Till then,
Dr T