A Few Things I’ve Learned About Teaching

Posted on December 15, 2021 by admin

Last week I shared what I’ve learned about being a good student. This time I’ll share what I’ve learned about being a good teacher. I’ve never taught in schools and, aside from a few times I’ve been paid to teach juggling, I’ve never taught professionally. However, I’ve taught a number of people how to juggle, dance, and do other cool things. This post will cover some of what I’ve learned about teaching and why skilled teachers deserve a lot of credit as teaching is much harder than it looks.

  1. Be patient. This has been one of the hardest things for me to practice whenever I’ve taught someone. Something that’s crystal clear to me may be clear as mud to someone who doesn’t understand it or has never done it. Even when I think I know a way to help them understand it, that way might not work; that’s when I tend to feel the most frustrated. On good days, I can take a breath, regroup, and try something else until I find something that works.
  2. Understand and teach to the student’s way of learning. Get to know the student and what the student needs to learn effectively. Not everyone learns the same way so it’s important to explain things in ways the student understands since I already understand it. Only by seeing things from their perspective can I find a way that works for them.
  3. Make it safe. Learning something new can be scary, especially around other people. There’s fear of failure, fear of being judged, fear of being shamed, and many other fears involved with learning. That’s why the best teachers make learning safe. Safe to ask questions, safe to experiment, safe to fail, and safe to try again. This way, rather than being turned off from whatever they’re learning, the students can learn effectively, have fun, and want to learn even more.
  4. Think outside the box. With teaching, what matters most is that the student learns in a way that allows them to succeed and makes them want to continue learning. As long as that’s accomplished, it doesn’t matter whether conventional or unconventional methods are used. Get as creative as necessary to get the job done and don’t be afraid to get silly if that’s what it takes.
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Being a Good Student

Posted on December 8, 2021 by admin

In addition to going to school as most people do, I’ve also learned a lot from teachers skilled in juggling, unicycling, dancing, martial arts, and other activities I enjoy. Along with learning those activities, I’ve also learned how to be a good student. Here are some useful things to keep in mind whenever you’re learning something new or improving at something you can already do.

  1. Be open minded. There are plenty of things I don’t know and way more things that I don’t even know that I don’t know. Even with something I’ve been doing for most of my life (such as juggling), someone else may show me a better way to do it or something I can do with it that I never considered. If I’m closed off to other ideas, I’ll miss a lot of opportunities to improve and I won’t have as much fun.
  2. Stay humble. I’m willing to reconsider most of my ideas and practices. On my best days, I’m willing to reconsider all of them. I’m also generally open to being corrected when I’m wrong or when I’m shown a better way to do something. Sometimes I dislike it and every so often I flat out reject it. Most of the time, though, I’ll hear the person out and will probably give their way a go. If it works better than what I was doing, great. If not, I’ll go back to what I was doing before. No way to lose with this approach.
  3. Ask questions. This can be daunting at times, especially in group settings. Who enjoys admitting they need help with something or don’t understand it? I’ve gradually gotten comfortable speaking up as needed. In addition to benefiting me, this may also help someone who has a similar question yet doesn’t have the courage to ask. Ultimately, I’d rather risk feeling uncomfortable while asking a question early on than risk feeling even more uncomfortable later after making a huge mistake due to not asking.
  4. Be willing to make mistakes. I suspect that many people avoid trying new things because they don’t want to feel embarrassed by making mistakes around other people. It’s ok to feel embarrassed in that situation. I still feel that way at times. Despite those feelings, I succeed because my interest in learning is greater than my desire to avoid feeling embarrassed or looking silly after making a mistake in public. Mistakes are part of the learning process; there’s no growth without mistakes, so don’t be afraid to make them.
  5. Learn from failure. This may be the most important point on this list. As much as failure hurts, it isn’t the end of the world. When you fail, you’re one step closer to success as long as you keep going. The best thing to do is analyze the failure, figure out what went wrong, find a better way to go, and practice the better way to reduce future failures. Keep that up each time you fail and you’ll succeed in time.
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Getting to Know Myself

Posted on December 1, 2021 by admin

I’ve felt a lot of stress for much of my life over what people say and appear to feel toward me. One reason for that is my tendency to believe negative things said about me. For whatever reason, it’s much easier to believe the negative stuff and much harder to believe the positive stuff (such as when someone gives me a genuine compliment, even when it’s accurate and I deserve it). As I continue to let go of negativity, I’m learning more about who I actually am and I’m becoming more comfortable with that person all the time. Now I’m less likely to feel upset if someone says something to me that I don’t like or if they don’t like me or something I do.

Whenever I’m feeling confident and secure in who I am, the urge to defend myself goes way down. There’s little to no pride, which is quite fragile, easily damaged and shaken, and requires constant defensiveness. Without that, I don’t have to respond internally or externally to what someone may say against me; if they insult me or appear to be talking down to me, that won’t matter. Whether or not they do it, I’ll be feeling at peace and feeling good about myself. I don’t need to get drawn into an exchange or conflict over it.

This gets into what I think is the important difference between awareness and sensitivity. With awareness, you can know what’s going on in yourself, around you, and maybe even pick up what’s going on in another person, such as how they’re feeling and what they’re wanting. You also get that with sensitivity (though you might mistake your own feelings for someone else’s or vice versa) but along with that knowing, there’s also the risk of feeling disturbed by negativity or anything else that comes up, whether it comes from you, from another person, or from something else in your current situation.

Also, sensitivity can bring with it a lot of negativity, such as a tendency to say whatever comes to mind even if it causes harm, refrain from saying anything that may be unpopular, over explain things, defend things that don’t need to be defended and haven’t been challenged, feel upset easily, and generally let your inner state be determined by the conditions around you. With deep awareness, you can perceive everything around you without being subject to it. You can see what’s going on and decide how to respond (or whether to respond at all) rather than being forced into a particular response by your emotions. That’s an incredibly strong, powerful, and peaceful position.

I’ve been both sensitive and aware for much of my life. As I keep working on myself, I’m increasingly moving deeper into awareness and away from sensitivity. That lets me perceive what’s happening and know what’s going on without being overtaken by it and forced into feeling like I need to push back, defend myself, or anything else along those lines. Awareness also shows me what’s important to focus on and what can be safely ignored. That way I can keep my attention where it’s most needed. Often the right thing to do or say comes to me automatically when I’m deeply aware. Sensitivity tends to keep me focused on everything around me, with most of my attention given to where it’s least needed. When I’m feeling sensitive, that’s when I struggle and hesitate to make any kind of decision, let alone a good one.

Whatever somebody says about me reflects their perceptions rather than the reality about me. That’s something I’ve understood intellectually for a long time but haven’t been able to embody and truly know with every fiber of my being until recently. It’s wonderful to know myself so well that I don’t buy into falsehoods people say about me. As I get to know myself better and better, nobody can take that knowledge away from me, so there’s nothing to fight about. That knowing brings with it an incredible sense of peace peace that’s growing deeper all the time. If I keep this up by releasing enough fears and negativity toward myself, I think I’ll eventually reach the point that somebody can say anything to me or about me or think anything about me or feeling any way toward me and I’ll be able to simply shrug it off; like water off a duck’s back, as they say. I’ll know exactly who I am and I won’t have to wonder “What if what that person said about me is true?” There won’t be any suspicion or fear of that because I’ll be so knowledgeable about myself and loving toward myself that what anyone else says won’t matter, especially someone who doesn’t know me. I’ll be at peace since I’ll know who I am. That’s a wonderful place to be and I’m finally making it my home. I hope you can do the same.

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Take Smaller Bites

Posted on November 24, 2021 by admin

I see a lot of praise for being constantly on the go. Somehow it’s become popular to think that if you don’t always have multiple projects going simultaneously and if you’re not feeling exhausted from working around the clock to get everything done, then you’re wasting your time and may even be doing something morally wrong. I completely disagree with that idea. Here’s my take on this.

Underneath the idea that work is the most important thing in life seems to be the idea that work is what gives your life value. In actuality, your value and your worth come from your existence, not from how much or what kind of work you do. Until you accept that, you might attempt to make peace with yourself through your accomplishments. However, no matter how hard you work or what you achieve, you’ll never end your inner civil war through hard work because that’s not how it happens. As long as you base your worth on work, your inner critic will always compare you negatively to someone else who is working harder, accomplishing more, and succeeding more in certain areas than you. This is a recipe for constant dissatisfaction and chronic exhaustion as you attempt to work ever harder in the hope of finding peace.

It’s not about working harder, though. If you’re already working super hard, then working even harder will just burn you out. Burnout makes everything more difficult and makes you much less effective even at simple tasks. Even if you manage to power through a gargantuan amount of work without collapsing immediately after, sooner or later you’ll pay for it. The high level of stress from the endless grind combined with chronic lack of sufficient sleep will likely end your life earlier than if you had taken good care of yourself. What’s more, your final years will be much lower in quality. Check out what Matthew Walker has to say about the importance of sleep if you’re still not convinced that proper self-care is crucial.

I’ve seen the problems with the workaholic approach repeatedly, both in myself and in those close to me. Burning the candle at both ends, working late at night or early in the morning, sacrificing health and well-being to accomplish something much less important, etc. It never ends well. With this approach, there is no “I’ll rest when it’s done”. Once it’s become a habit to put anything and everything above your health, it’s extremely difficult to change that into a habit that prioritizes health. Even if you managed to finish all your current projects, you could still find some excuse as to why you can’t rest yet. There’s always another project that seems indispensable and requires as much of your waking day (and night) as possible. The grind never ends and the rest never comes.

So don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you have too many projects going at one time, scale back by pausing some of them until you’re able to effectively handle your workload. Once you’ve finished a few projects or gotten enough of them to a level that requires much less effort, you can then resume some of your other ventures while maintaining your health and effectiveness. Alternatively, you could look into improving your time management skills in case making a few changes allows you to keep up with all your projects without sacrificing your well-being in the process; even if you still have to scale back, better time management will still make your life much better and your work much more effective. You’ll then have time to actually enjoy what you’ve accomplished instead of simply moving right on to the next big thing. I’ve learned all of this the hard way and I’ll carry these lessons with me for the rest of my life. I hope you learn it the easy way.

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Competing Visions

Posted on November 17, 2021 by admin

Ever since I was a little kid, there have been two visions of the world competing within me. Whichever one shapes my perceptions depends on how I feel at any given moment. I’ll describe them both in detail, starting with the one I much prefer.

I’ve had a strong sense of optimism from a young age. That optimism can be chased away on occasion but it sticks around through some difficult, trying, and downright weird times and manages to always come back even when it’s been chased away. I consider that optimistic view that says things are going to work out well, everything will be fine, and I’ll be ok in life to have originated from a lot of the movies, TV shows, songs, and books I experienced growing up. I also went to a lot of theme parks, especially Disney theme parks, throughout much of my youth. Places meant for families to have fun together and get a break from the difficulties in life. There, good always triumphs over evil, everyone lives happily ever after, and everything gets wrapped up in a nice neat bow. Occasionally, I’d encounter a story with a lot of bumps on the road to happiness or one that would have the bad guy win instead of having a happy ending, but those were pretty rare for me to find while I was growing up. I experienced a lot of optimism in many forms from a young age and I soaked it all up. Once in a while something in school, at home, or elsewhere in life would challenge that optimism: apparent rudeness, discomfort, or pain (whether arising from me or somebody else). But afterward I’d quickly go back to that positive vision since that negative experience was only a momentary disruption from the peace, optimism, and happiness.

The other vision is pessimistic and negative. It exists in the stories where the bad guy gets away, the good guy doesn’t save the day, and there’s no happy ending. That’s the vision that’s been dominant in me for the better part of a decade now. It’s been around longer than that but it’s taken center stage as I’ve experienced more of the world, seen a lot of the pain that people are dealing with, and experienced the negativity they bring to the table for whatever reason. As a result of all that negativity, the positive vision has gotten a lot more beaten, tattered, and worn down over time while the negative vision has grown stronger from being fed so much. It doesn’t take much for the positive vision to retreat now (even with all the progress I’ve made over the past few years) but it does take a lot for it to come back. All of that plus internalizing a lot of negativity within myself has made the negative vision much more dominant in my own life. Whether in trace amounts or huge amounts, it seems that there’s anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, fear, pain, and other kinds of negativity almost everywhere I go. This includes my job, home, social gatherings, and even events intended to be entirely fun. I’ve noticed this for years now. It’s real hard for me to keep my spirits up when almost everyone around me has their spirits real low. It’s challenging to swim against the current when the current is unceasing and I’m still learning how to swim.

I can feel even more discouraged when my attempts to change things, improve whatever situation I’m in, introduce more positivity, and help people get out of their negative cycles either don’t succeed to the degree that I want them to or totally fail. Then I start feeling hopeless, as if that vision of things being ok was only ever and will only ever be nothing more than a fantasy. A fantasy that exists only in movies, TV shows, books, songs, theme parks, and me on my best days. It takes a lot for me to pull myself out of those funks. One thing that helps me get back to feeling more like myself is being around people with an optimistic view. They provide a nice break from all the negativity.

That’s what it comes down to for me: spending more time around positive people and less time around negative people. If the most positive person I’m around most days is me and almost everyone else I encounter is super negative, that tends to drag me down. I prefer to spend time around positive folks who seem to see things similarly to me and don’t take existing negativity as a statement of fact about how things have always been, always will be, and are meant to be. I especially like being around the people who have been able to make something out of what they’ve encountered in life by lifting themselves up, lifting others up, and making things better in a real, lasting way. That plus continuing to release negativity, ceasing to pour myself out for people who don’t want my help, and refraining from lowering myself to match someone who’s in a negative state have got me feeling much better as of late. I’m sure I’ll feel even better as I keep working on all of this and continue moving in a more positive direction. I look forward to seeing where that takes me and talking about it in future posts.

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The Danger of Pride

Posted on November 10, 2021 by admin

It seems there’s always a missing piece of the puzzle for me. The one I’ve discovered most recently was pride. How it hid from me, worked all kinds of trouble behind the scenes, and what I’ve done about it since. Without further ado, here’s my take on pride.

After my experiment a few months ago, I felt more at peace than any other time in my life. Continuing to work through negativity kept me in that state almost constantly, regardless of what was going on around me. However, I started regressing about halfway through October. Despite continuing to let go, I’d find myself feeling upset, suspicious, or generally uncomfortable around other people. Situations that once seemed easy now felt difficult and difficult situations now seemed impossible. I felt as if everyone were secretly out to get me and I couldn’t do anything right. Why did I feel that way if I had all this newfound inner peace and strength?

Pride. I use “pride” interchangeably with “conceited”, “arrogant”, or “egotistical”. Looking down on others, thinking I’m more spiritually advanced than they are, and believing that I’ve overcome challenges that they haven’t yet are a few examples of pride that I notice in my life. Additionally, I now understand how pride is behind the feeling that I’m responsible for how everyone else feels, what they do in life, the quality of their day, etc. As if I know all the answers or I am supposed to make everything turn out in a particular way.

Pride also works in the other direction by making me think that other people are responsible for my feelings, making sure I have a good time, etc. This makes it easy to feel bad about myself whenever someone speaks negatively about me. If my sense of self is based on the opinions of others, then however I feel about myself is going to vary depending on who I’m around and what they think of me, even if it’s inaccurate. In contrast, if my sense of self is based on the deep knowledge of who I am, then I’ll feel secure enough in myself to remain unaffected by what anyone says, whether it’s positive or negative.

My experience aligns what David Hawkins says about pride in Letting Go. A particular quote from that book that resonated quite strongly with me was “Defensiveness invites attack.” This helped me realize how pride was keeping me feeling sensitive to nearly every seemingly negative word, action, and facial expression from those around me. I was constantly on guard for any sign of attack rather than being able to relax and find peace within myself. This was exacerbated by the fact that, for me, pride is closely connected to anger. The more pride I’m holding onto, the easier it is for me to feel angry and the harder it is for me to move past anger. As the pride goes out, so does the anger.

These realizations hit me like a ton of bricks. Since then, working through pride has given me back the deep inner peace I had in September after my initial experiment. One way around pride I’ve found is simply feeling good about myself (or anything else in my life) rather than feeling boastful, egotistical, or superior to anyone else. Another huge part of this process has been giving myself grace to be imperfect, accepting myself along with my flaws, forgiving myself for past mistakes, and going easy on myself for not having it all together. This has made it easier to relax and accept the fact that I’m not responsible for everything. Having less pride also makes it easier to communicate effectively since I’m more patient when listening to other people and I can avoid feeling upset if they disagree with me or respond differently than I had hoped they would. Those are the benefits I’ve found so far of releasing some pride. I look forward to seeing what else happens as I continue letting go of pride whenever it comes up.

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Forgive Yourself

Posted on November 3, 2021 by admin

Forgive yourself for hoping things would change when you knew they wouldn’t

Forgive yourself for giving dozens of chances to the people who didn’t deserve even a second chance from you

Forgive yourself for all the times you stayed when you knew you should go

Forgive yourself for all the times you said “Yes” when you truly wanted to say “No”

Forgive yourself for holding on when you should have let go

Forgive yourself for emptying yourself for people who never filled you up

Forgive yourself for giving way more than you received

Forgive yourself for not knowing any better; forgive yourself for not doing any better even when you did know

Forgive yourself for all the times you held your tongue after bringing up your pain and they made it all about them instead

Forgive yourself for all the abuse you accepted in silence while you gave out nothing but kindness

Forgive yourself for all the times you forgot that “Treat others as you want to be treated” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” required you to love yourself first and to not accept way less than you’re willing to give

Forgive yourself for staying silent to avoid trouble when your needs weren’t being met

Forgive yourself for neglecting your inner child

Forgive yourself for all the times you acted out of fear rather than strength

Forgive yourself for all the guilt you felt about potentially hurting the feelings of someone who had no concern for yours

Forgive yourself for all the times you let fear or desire keep you in a place you knew was wrong for you

Forgive yourself for all the red flags you didn’t notice because red flags look white when you’re looking at someone through rose-colored glasses

Forgive yourself for yourself for not establishing and maintaining boundaries; forgive yourself for feeling guilty when you established and enforced a boundary

Forgive yourself for not heeding the warnings of those close to you and finding out the hard way instead

Forgive yourself for letting people treat you in ways you’d never dare treat them

Forgive yourself for having high hopes for low quality people

Forgive yourself for putting the wants of others above your own needs; forgive yourself for keeping in your life the people who gladly accepted that deal

Forgive yourself for being a much better friend to them than they ever were to you

Forgive yourself for all the fights, arguments, and efforts to get them to understand you when deep down you knew they never would

Forgive yourself for all the times you were so thirsty for love and appreciation that you were willing to drink poison

Forgive yourself for all the times you took somebody at their word when their actions didn’t match

Forgive yourself for all the times you believed someone who said “I love you” as soon as they finished abusing you

Forgive yourself for all the times you took the knife out of your back and handed it right back to the person who just stabbed you with it

Forgive yourself for all the excuses you made why somebody would treat you that way; forgive yourself for allowing that to be ok with you at the time

Forgive yourself for all the times you subjected yourself to situations that you wouldn’t allow a family member or friend to endure for even a moment

Forgive yourself for being more concerned about how somebody thought of you than about how you felt around them

Forgive yourself for putting someone else’s expectations above your own needs

Forgive yourself for all the times fear of loneliness kept you around somebody who made you feel more lonely than you ever felt by yourself

Forgive yourself for all the times you tried to talk with somebody who was never interested in listening

Forgive yourself for all the times you were hurt and stuck around because it “could be worse” or they “might change”

Forgive yourself for all the times you didn’t forgive yourself

Forgive yourself so that you can heal

Forgive yourself and those past mistakes so that they stay in the past rather than following you into the future

Forgive yourself so that you won’t settle anymore

Forgive yourself so you don’t get dragged down to their level

Forgive yourself so you can stop playing their games, which they’ll always win and you never will

Forgive yourself so you can learn the lessons and know how to protect yourself when you see those kinds of people again

Forgive yourself so that you won’t love someone else way more than you love yourself

Forgive yourself so that when someone shows you what you mean to them, you’ll believe them

Forgive yourself so that you can learn how to fill yourself up and seek good people instead of seeking attention from someone who is wrong for you

Forgive yourself so that you can experience from yourself the love that you were always craving but never received from them

Forgive yourself so you can have peace within instead of looking for it from someone who’ll never give it to you

Forgive yourself so that what were once stumbling blocks become stepping stones to peace and love

Forgive yourself so that when something truly good comes along for you, you can welcome it wholeheartedly because you know you deserve it

Forgive yourself for all the times you lost yourself so that you can finally find yourself

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What Would You Actually Do?

Posted on October 27, 2021 by admin

What would you do if you had lived during a past atrocity? It’s easy to imagine what you would have done in that situation but how accurate can you be in your assessment? After all, values change greatly over time and many values that are now common were pretty rare hundreds of years ago. If you had been raised back then with the values of that time and faced all the pressure to conform to those values, would you still do what you think is right by your present values?

A few complications to this include the facts that most people are raised to follow orders (starting early on in their families) and such conditioning is reinforced all through their lives, often with harsh punishments for refusing to follow orders. Further, it’s hard to avoid being swayed by manipulation and even outright propaganda since, as Daniel Kahneman talks about, it’s often incredibly difficult to distinguish what is familiar from what is true. With that in mind, it’s understandable how huge numbers of people can do something they believe to be beneficial even if it turns out to be harmful (something Dietrich Bonhoeffer contemplated leading up to his death), especially if they’re driven by an enormous amount of fear.

This is even more of an issue when looking at group behavior. Popular causes come with little to no personal risk so it’s easy to stand up when everyone you know is standing with you. Would you still stand up even if everyone you knew were sitting down and wishing you’d do the same? How about if, by going against the majority, you could lose your job, lose the support of everyone close to you, have to leave your country, or risk being imprisoned, tortured, or executed? What would those potential consequences compel you to do: follow the crowd or follow your conscience?

There’s also the issue of not learning from history by understanding how massive atrocities started as small issues and grew larger over time as they remained insufficiently opposed. This can prevent examining how massive atrocities could arise from seemingly benign activities in the present age. That may result in an unfortunate situation in which some massive atrocities aren’t prevented while they’re still small issues, which is when they’ve done the least damage and are easiest to stop; instead, they’re not addressed until they’re huge problems, which is when they’ve done the most damage and are hardest to stop.

Anyone who says that they know exactly how they’d behave in any major past situation is only speculating. They don’t have access to a reality in which they lived back then so they can’t know for sure what they would have actually done in that situation. I include myself in this and, personally, I feel relieved that I don’t have to find out what I’d have done in a lot of past situations where the risks of getting involved were incredibly high. I hope I’d have followed my conscience. I often wonder how future generations will think of what those of us alive today are doing now and will do later in our lives. I hope we give them reason to feel gratitude toward us rather than scorn.

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My Take on Trust

Posted on October 20, 2021 by admin

Trust is a very tricky thing for me. On the one hand, I generally trust people easily. Sometimes too much and too soon. On the other hand, a lot of occurrences in my life have made me quite suspicious at times of any given person’s motivations, which can lead to trust issues. I haven’t yet sorted out that contradiction but I’m sure I will someday. With that said, here are some things that someone can do to earn and keep my trust, as well as some ways they can break and lose it.

For starters, there has to be certainty that they have my best interests in mind. They can show this by demonstrating that they understand my concerns after listening to me long enough to get a feel for where I’m coming from, what I want, and what I need. This requires that they take my concerns seriously rather than dismiss them.

They can also make it clear that they care about me and are not attempting to control me or force me to do something, especially for any personal benefit it might bring them. If everything they’re doing is motivated by love and concern for me, then their actions will show it. That’s why they stick to the truth and acknowledge when they’re wrong. And when they slip up, they always attempt to do better next time and they succeed far more often than they fail. Someone who can do all of that is worthy of my trust.

Someone can lose my trust include by making it seem as if they don’t care about me, such as by misrepresenting my concerns (especially intentionally). Few things break my trust in someone faster than someone either not taking my concerns seriously or ignoring them entirely by immediately turning the focus onto themselves. Speaking to me in an aggressive fashion, calling me names, and otherwise insulting me will also cause me to lose trust in them. All of that makes it seem as if they’re trying to control me and make me do something for their own gain rather than for my well-being.

Another huge trust breaker for me involves responding poorly when it’s revealed that they regularly lie or are consistently wrong. If someone often lies or makes claims which repeatedly turn out to be false and refuses to own up to it, I lose any and all trust I had in them. Similarly, I stop trusting someone who demonstrates a pattern of making bad decisions without showing any intention to stop and start making good decisions instead. I’ve known too many people like that and I am through keeping them around.

Unfortunately, far too many people can and do blindly trust those who haven’t shown any concern for their well-being. This happens a lot with people in positions of “authority” and, in some cases, can actually become a logical fallacy called appeal to authority. Although that kind of trust ought to quickly break down if not backed up by anything that warrants trusting those people, it somehow manages to persist. All of this brings me to the questions of who do you trust and why do you trust them? Let me know and I will see you in the next post.

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More of My Thoughts on Control

Posted on October 13, 2021 by admin

So many people seem to be concerned about things that are ultimately beyond their control. Systems, institutions, practices, traditions, and even entire, cities, states, and countries. Not to mention the mundane actions of other people whom they may not even know. All of those (except for other people) are often thought of as “ours”; that is, the systems, institutions, and so on are thought of as belonging to or within the control of the people who live under and are directly affected by them. If that were the case, then I don’t think that so many people would feel as hopeless as they appear to feel. It’s as if most people who say that “we” control all of those things don’t actually believe what they say. They may truly believe deep down that the idea of popular control of the institutions they live under is an illusion intended to keep them following the wishes of those who are actually in charge. Despite this, they still seem to feel guilty for decisions made over which they have no say.

Stephen Covey would say that these issues arise when someone’s circle of concern is outside their circle of influence. In other words, they’re too focused on things outside of their control and not focused enough on what is within their control. Going further, I think that the more things one attempts to control, the worse one feels. Everything I’ve seen, both in myself and in other people, makes me think that the desire to control comes primarily from fear. Fear of being hurt, fear of not getting what is wanted, fear of disappointing someone, and a general fear that something bad will happen if one isn’t in control. Additionally, those who were raised with the burden of responsibility for everyone else’s feelings on their shoulders while their own feelings hardly ever mattered seem to feel a great deal of guilt upon noticing the many problems in the world. This is especially an issue when the pain caused by those old behavior patterns hasn’t been healed. If this applies to you, then here’s a little encouragement. Everyone who made you feel responsible for their feelings and attempted to guilt you into feeling bad when you’d done nothing wrong? They’re the ones who were in the wrong, not you. So please be kind to yourself as you work on undoing the negative conditioning that was forced upon you.

Letting go of a lot of fear over the past few months has helped me relax into things I can’t control and made me focus more on things that I can influence. Additionally, losing a great deal of the desire for control has freed me from feeling guilty over the outcomes of decisions which were never mine to make or influence in the first place. That’s been an enormous relief and I’ll gladly take it any day over the anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and inaction (or ineffective action) that come from focusing on things outside my circle of influence.

There is peace, freedom, and opportunity for effective action in relinquishing all that which is beyond your control and seeing where you have the ability to make positive change. Taking care of yourself and your loved ones while focusing on what you can control are all healthy, necessary, and, truly, the only effective things to do. If enough people did this, then, in addition to all of them feeling much greater peace, I think it would largely sort out the major problems that never seem to get solved with current approaches. Is that actually what would happen? I don’t know, but let’s find out together, shall we?

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Humanitarian Things, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on More of My Thoughts on Control