Some people very obviously "live" & are very active agents in determining how their #life goes. Others are far more passive; often you hear them say that things happen "to" them. To what degree have YOU controlled the outcome of your life?
Discussion: Do You Live Life? Or Does Life Live You?
7 years ago in #life by denmarkguy (78)
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I wonder whether "having control of your life" is a western/judeo-christian/middle-class concept or is it a universal concept? I'm not sure all cultures have the notion that you control the outcome of your life. Of course we make decisions all the the time, but usually those decisions are limited to things we already know are possible for us. We don't usually decide to do things that are impossible to do for us in the short term. So the number of possible decisions you can or are willing to take are already limited.
You have to add to that the fact that the information you have in any given moment is basically incomplete, so your decisions may be based on incomplete information.
Finally, imagine a game a million orders of magnitude more complex than chess. You really think it is possible to predict what the consequences of a seemingly unimportant move will be a thousand moves in the future? You would need to be more intelligent that God to do that. Add to that the fact that you don't get to chose neither the pieces you are given at the beginning nor the starting positions of such pieces. Can you really decide the outcome?
Allow me to to quote Alan Watts: "the universe 'peoples'" but "a person doesn't 'universe'" (here "to people" and "to universe" are used as verbs).
I'm just ruminating. I don't go around feeling that things "happen" to me. I just think that I'm part of things that happen. And I can definitively control some outcomes within certain scopes and within certain time frames.
Seems to me that perhaps "control of our lives" is about controlling the unknown, which it seems we humans have a long-standing fear of. And if we feel like we're "controlling" our lives... it all seems a little less scary and uncertain.
But it seems like it's just an illusion, anyway... fan of Alan Watts; I think he got it pretty close to right.
Great question @denmarkguy
Try not to mind my sleep-deprived answer if I begin to ramble a little.
When it comes to things happening "TO" me -- I've stopped asking "WHY ME?" and started stating "WHY NOT ME?"
Good or bad it's why not me? I accept the decisions I've made in the past because it's what brought me here to this present moment. It's too easy to let things slide then blame the fates and cry WHY ME?
This is also why I temper any sense of entitlement because I've lived through easy come, easy go. The going is easier to mentally deal with when one says, "Ah hell that sucks but...why NOT me?" or If not me, then who? or I guess it was my turn.
This flip in my thinking has really allowed me to appreciate the things I have right now. That includes my health and living life with a positive outlook because sooner or later we'll either be ash or 6 feet under but until that moment arrives I'm fighting gravity every step of the way.
Life. Yeah, I'm living it.
Thanks! I'm increasingly living it, too. Spent far too many years trapped by the belief that I was simply "destined" to have whatever life brought me happen to me. And that I had no say in the matter at all. Unfortunately, I managed to attract quite a bit of misfortune... and then I would do a lot of moaning and groaning about the outcomes I experiences... probably to the point that my friends grew a bit bored with me. "If you want something different or better, why don't you just CHANGE something, rather than just sit and and expect magic parachutes to drop from the sky!"Yup, was that person, a long time ago.
Birth, sickness, aging, death happen, but I can control how I react to life. Most of the time I just roll with it and try to avoid piles of poo...hahaha
Attitude helps a lot ..lol and avoiding the poo
Hahaha pile of poo.
But of truth, i feel life is just a general factor with a lot of ups and down. Life is like clay and you are a potter. You still choose the type of life you want to live despite the conditions surrounding you.
For instance, steve wonder was born blind but he choose to play a piano despite the negatives that life threw at him
Avoiding the piles of poo can definitely be a challenge at times... but yeah, I get what you're saying.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not really living and my life is living for me . There are days where I feel like nothing ever in my control and I have to let things be . Stressing can’t even change the outcome
There is a lot of "wisdom" that we are just supposed to "take charge" of our lives, but sometimes it gets exhausting to be "awake" all the time... so life ends up just happening
Most of us feel everything happens to us and we have to look at changing that thinking. Reach inside for the balance and peace. You are right we have to go with the flow.
Some of my life choices have worked out well for me, some not so well, as far as providing what I thought I was going to get from them. I am happy with those choices though because they were mine. A wise saying I heard was "make plans, but don't plan the outcome". Life is a crap shoot in some ways, but happiness can be found in all things.
Some wisdom there... I'm definitely onboard with the whole "don't attach to the outcome" part. Expectations usually lead to disappointment, so I prefer just going with the flow.
"attach" being the critical word. I do believe we need to ask ourselves how well our choices are working for us, while working toward what we want and feel is right.
Life loves me but I’ve been changing that around so far, taking back control. Lol currently I’m failing, but learning from my failures makes me better prepared not to do them again.
Ah yes, and that reminds me of an old truism about "learning from your mistakes so you can avoid making the same ones again, and be free to make NEW mistakes!"
Thank you for your wisdom 🙏🏽
But, I don’t quite have the luxury of making new mistakes 😂. However, what I can do is build upon on my existing solutions to my mistake and become stronger.
Like they say:
what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger
For my opinion if you can earn money from the things you love doing then you can live your live. I love photography & NGOs development work & i always trying to earn money from those two sector.
Thank you for sharing!
beautiful nature
Fuzzy purrs....