The Control Paradox by Bill Cottringer 

“If you wish your desires to be fulfilled, desire only what is in your own control.” ~Epictetus. 

     In practical terms, a paradox is: A situation in which two things seem to contradict each other, yet both can be true at the same time. This often occurs when doing or believing the opposite of what seems logical, produces the better result.

A few everyday examples:

• “The more you try to control everything, the less control you feel you have.”.
• “The more you know, the more you realize you don't know.”
• “Sometimes you have to step backwards to move forward.”
• “The best way to get people to listen to you is to listen to them first.”

     We often tell people: “Take control of your life.” But much of life isn't really under our control. Here are just a few things we don't control:

• What other people think or do.
• Accidents and disasters.
• Illness and aging.
• The economy.
• Other people's decisions.
• Our past.
• Many consequences of decisions we've already made.
• Death and loss.
• Unexpected opportunities, or their absence.

       In understanding the control paradox, it is helpful to distinguish several different aspects of control. These are: Actual control, perceived control, influence, acceptance and response control. At the end of the day, what may be under our actual ability to control, is our response choice of how we react to the next situation that happens to us, especially the unwanted, undesirable bad things. Learning to make more informed choices of responses to each new situation we find ourselves in, one by one, puts us in a slightly better position to influence better outcomes to situations coming our way. Free will is a muscle that needs lots of practice to build strength and endurance in order to overcome today’s undue influences of social media, technology and the Information Age, not to mention our VUCA world overloaded with volatility, uncertainty, constant change and ambiguity.  

     Now back to the real problem at hand for the majority of us. The degree to which we perceive having or not having control over things that happen to us is highly correlated to the amount of stress we have to deal with. The more we feel we have control, the less stress we have. The less we feel we have control, the more stress we have.  But this is where the above common denominator ends and all the varied responses occur to the level of stress that is created—including the full array of emotions listed below:

1. Fear/anxiety. “Something bad may happen.” This thought brings on worry, apprehension, uncertainty, or feeling unsafe.
2. Anger/irritability. “This isn't fair!” Sucha judgement breeds frustration, resentment, impatience, or hostility.
3. Sadness. “I've lost something.” This sad thought leads to discouragement, disappointment, grief, or feeling emotionally hurt.
4. Helplessness. “There is nothing I can do.” Such feeling of powerless or unable to influence what is happening can lead to hopelessness.
5. Frustration. “I can't make this work.” This is a common conclusion when obstacles repeatedly interfere with goals.
6. Guilt. “I should have done something differently.” This type of guilt is often associated with perceived mistakes or responsibility and can easily fuel a victim mentality of “everything happens to me and nothing I do matters.”
7. Shame/embarrassment. “Something is wrong with me.” This becomes a more self-directed, personalized response than guilt.
8. Overwhelm. “This all is just too much.” A dreadful feeling of being overwhelmed occurs when demands seem greater than one's perceived ability or resources to cope.
9. Loneliness/isolation. “I'm dealing with this by myself.” These feelings can make people withdraw or feel even more disconnected.
10. Numbness/detachment. “I don't want to feel this anymore.” An emotional shutdown can occur when stress becomes excessive or prolonged.

   Among other things, the paradox of control involves the belief that we should and can control things that are not really controllable, can in itself increase our stress and prompt more dysfunctional responses to that stress. It is like feeling pain about a pain we have, making the pain worse. Or being depressed about being depressed, which only worsens the depression. Long ago, William Glasser, in writing Reality Therapy, maintained that we cannot change a reality we don’t like until we understand and perceive such a reality correctly and completely. In my own book, Reality Repair, the thesis is: “It is not reality that needs repairing, but rather our own faulty and incomplete perceptions of it.”

     So, in this spirit let’s take a closer look at reality here. We don’t really have that much control over the things that happen to us. But we do have much more control over how we respond to what happens to us. And here is another inside look at the dynamics of the control paradox. We somehow allow ourselves to feel bad about our inability to control things that we can’t actually control. And when we try to do something that we can’t do in getting rid of these bad feelings, we fail again being a hostage to a vicious circle of hopelessness headed to the nowhere zone, with no apparent way out. Of course our ego is the lock on the door.

     Fortunately, there is some light at the end of this tunnel. Our alternative to solving this control paradox. The answer is the famous religious mantra of “Let go and let God” (Or whatever other name you believe to be the true CEO of our universe). But there is a caveat to this advice and that is you have to earn the right to let go and let God. And you can only do this by exhausting all your efforts to influence the situation in your favor, along with managing your best response to the situation. Here is a good example. Say someone insults you. You have very little control over their decision to insult you. On the other hand, you have considerably more control over whether you interpret this insult as devastating, unjustified, informative, irrelevant, or revealing a fault of theirs. And something you have even more control over is what you say and do next. This sequence between event, perception, and response is always our window of opportunity to exercise what control we do have to get outcomes that represent the best moral action known, which is to help the most and hurt the least.

    Some other practical solutions to cracking the control paradox:

1.       Ask, “what part of this situation is actually under my control?”

2.       Separate the event from your response. Say you get fired from your job. You can’t control the employer’s decision, what they think of you, the past, or the financial consequences of being fired. But you can control your next job application, who you seek help from, what you learn from the experience, how you treat family, or whether to become bitter and depressed, or constructive and optimistic.

3.       Stop trying to control other people, but you can influence others by way of your response to what they do or say.

4.       Control the controllables and let go of the rest. Here you are saying, “Identify what you can actually control, act decisively to influence the best outcome, and stop wasting energy trying to control what you cannot control.

5.       Develop a response repertoire of your behavioral choices:

     In summary, consider this conclusion: Our goal isn’t to maximize control but rather to maximize effective management of our power to influence and respond. Although we may not be able to control what life does to us, we can learn to control what we do with what life does to us.

It is not life that bothers us, but rather our opinions about it. ~Epictetus.