It’s the most common psychological symptom in the world. Whether you are a 6-year-old boy or a 96-year-old great, great, grandmother, you experience it on a regular basis, even when good things are happening. It is anxiety.
Arguably anxiety is at an all-time high, even with all the resources and devices available that prior generations couldn’t have fathomed. We might have figured out self-driving cars, or how to send a video instantaneously around the world. But the intensifying degree of our worries should temper our pride and induce a degree of collective humility because evidence suggests we are devolving when it comes to managing our fears.
All forms of anxiety induce either a desire to control and/or avoid. We either seek to evade the source (internal or external), or seek to control it. As “control freak” has become such a common part of our vernacular, rarely do we consider how what we attempt to control relates to our sense of peace.
Not all control is created alike. This is where we can make a fundamental mistake when it comes to dealing with our worries. Without realizing it, we often seek to control what is difficult or impossible to “rule over,” and exert little or no effort to shape that which is quite malleable and life-giving.
The list of what is difficult (or impossible) to control is long, but could begin here: feelings, motivation, energy, time, outcomes, culture, opinions (of others), people, weather, God. In contrast, our opportunities for impact are great in these areas: attitude, movement, fitness, communication, purpose, perspective, effort, openness, intention, will.
If we want to reduce our anxiety, and find greater peace, we are compelled to consider the tremendous opportunities available in the second list. The challenge is that in doing so, we must be a) humble b) flexible c) willing to grow. Often this goes against the fabric of our being, and so we keep hitting the same wall of worry.
With a renewed focus on what we can control, and striving to let go of what we can’t, not only is greater joy and peace possible, but ironically so is more influence on the first list (uncontrollables) that we place so much focus on. God and the weather might be out of reach, but how we feel and what people do are way more influenceable when the focus is on what I can do first.
For more information on how to deal with issues related to control, see the following link: https://james-schroeder.com/tag/control/
