#34 — Why you need to give up on control
Let me tell you straight away: because you really don’t have any other choice. Face it, you don’t control a freaking thing of your life. And the sooner you’ll understand that, the better. Can you really be 100% sure that a year from now you’ll have the same job? Or that a month from now you’ll be with the same woman or man? Or that a week from now you’ll be alive? You can’t. I know, it’s scary.
I was trying to remember when did I begin trying to control things in my life -has been a while now- but I don’t really know where that comes from… When did you? The vast majority of the people either breath slowly, trying to avoid changing things, for fear of having to deal with the consequences; other -me included- delude themselves of controlling everything, aggressively addressing what escape that.
As for me, I give up on that now. I’m out. There are some kind of people who particularly understand this change of paradigm: doctors and athletes, among others. An easy surgery in a day like many others has an unexpected complication and your patient dies, or you get a strain during the last session right before the most important match of your career. How do you deal with it? Imagine that.
I worked for six years beside an amazing small lovely girl called Diana Bianchedi. Olympic athlete, she broke her Achilles Tendon during the final match of the Olympic Games in Atlanta, in 1996. Would have you done? What would I have done? Sincerely I have no idea, I know what *she* did: out of sheer force of will she not only stood up but eventually won the match, gaining the second Gold Medal of her career.
That small lovely girl is a fucking tiger inside, and I cannot be thankful enough for being able to consider her a dear friend. Here’s the thing: if you give up on control you realize right away two things. First of all, you’ll feel strangely relieved… if you are not in control you’re not the sole responsible for the final result, someone else is at least partially responsible (the universe? Your dog? Pick one).
You cannot guarantee anything, so don’t do that. Second: if you cannot guarantee for the huge unreachable result two years from now, what can you do? You can only do the best that you can with what you have, at any given moment. That you can guarantee. But you know what? That’s the only thing that matters. Lotta little steps, lotta little bets. It’s like rafting, it’s not that you try to control the tide, right?
You adapt and shift trying to keep some direction navigating from point A to B. Sometimes it will be easier, sometimes it will be harder. Sometimes you’ll move slowly, sometimes you’ll only try not to go underwater. Sometimes you’ll avoid to crash against a wall for a tenth of a second, sometimes you’ll hit that wall anyway. And still if you hit it, you’ll clean up your bruises and look for an alternative way to go for it.
Simple as that. You’re not the almighty God with the fate of the humanity in his hands. Isn’t that awesome?
