Control and Surrender
Reflection on letting go of control for inner peace and embracing acceptance over resistance.
"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control." — Epictetus
This is part of the Stoic Reflection series. You can browse all reflections here
You're sitting in traffic, watching the minutes tick by.
Your hands grip the steering wheel tighter. Your jaw clenches. You have some place to be, you’re late, and you're still ten miles away.
You check your phone again. No movement ahead. Just an endless sea of red brake lights stretching into the morning haze.
And then it hits you – this burning desire to control everything is the very thing destroying your peace.
How many moments have you wasted like this? Fighting against the unchangeable? Raging against reality itself?
We do this constantly. We fight with the weather for ruining our plans. We battle with our aging bodies for not being what they used to be. We wrestle with other people's opinions of us, trying desperately to manage an image that exists only in their minds.
It's exhausting.
Here's the truth most of us don't want to face: control is largely an illusion.