“I’ve learned that when you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing.”

 

January and February have come and gone and winter is still rearing its ugly head.  The temperatures keep getting colder and colder, the snow drifts are piled higher and higher and there seems to be no end in sight.  With spring just around the corner it’s seems as if we might still be building snowmen instead of planting flowers.  We are smack dab in the middle of a deep freeze. The Northeast is having one hell of a winter, so what the hell am I living here for?  It’s a question that crosses my mind all the time.  As a matter of fact, I have countless questions that cross my thinker daily that makes me feels like my noggin might explode.  Largely my questions second guess my life choices and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just horrific at making decisions.  I deliberate frequently as to why I’m residing in the frigid northeast, when somewhere on this sphere we call home, societies are soaking up the sun, not having to dig out their cars from a snow bank.  It’s hard to believe that life goes on someplace else while we are frozen in place.

Ever roll out of bed and ponder what the hell you’re doing with your life or am I the only one?  It’s a reoccurring theme for me, just ask my husband.  I wonder what I’m going to do with myself and it seems I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up or even where I want to be?  With 38 years behind me, you would assume I would have my shit together but I suppose age has zero to do with it.  I want to possess all the answers and I want them now (I’m a slight bit impatient, does it show?).  For some reason the more grown-up I get the more questions I seem to have and the solutions just aren’t coming to me.  I assume I have so many questions and no results because I don’t wish to make incorrect decisions and suffer disappointment.  So instead I have regret from not making any choices. While I try to keep this tight grip on my life to try and never make mistakes I seem to be squeezing the life right out of it. 

An anonymous quote that I read this morning gave me pause and I think it came at the right time.   Here goes, “I’ve learned that when you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing.”  For a good number of us we feel like we are in the driver’s seat of our lives.  We plan out everything, down to the slight particulars of our day.  The control makes us feel like we are in charge and can make the occurrences that we want to happen, transpire.  Is that really the case or is this just an illusion?  We organize our days crossing every t and dotting every i, construct to do lists, filling in every imaginable space on our calendars.  WHY?  Is it because we don’t want to miss anything? We cram our schedules so full just to get it all in. 

In fact most of the finest things in life come when you aren’t planning or controlling the circumstances.  Some of the best things in life are serendipitous, finding something good without looking for it.  When we control every single moment we don’t leave room for serendipity.  In the past few months I have had a number of momentous peaks and valleys, some of the highest and lowest I‘ve had in some time.  I’ve experienced almost every emotion that the human brain allows, or so it seems. It’s been a thought-provoking few months to say the least. 

 I am privileged to have had many serendipitous instants along the way, like an impromptu drive through the Florida Keys with fantastic friends, spotting a mother whale and her calf soaring into the air while staring out into the ocean water, seeing my husband’s face light up when a 747 flew what felt like inches over our heads in St. Maarten, listening in the front row to one of the greatest blues musicians of all time without even knowing it, catching up with an old friend on Facebook, missing a flight out of Miami and cruising South Beach instead, just to name a few.  It is the little unexpected incidents that enhance our world and make our lives so much more enjoyable. I of course have had a few of the biggest tests and challenges of my life too but no need to go into those, this is a positivity blog!  But I will tell you that overthinking and the need to control those challenging situations only seemed to make them worse.

Back to all those uncertainties in my noodle, maybe it’s okay to not know what comes next and know that it’s okay to feel like you can’t take much more.  For god sakes we are human and need to lighten up (I’m reminding myself this more than anyone who is reading it).  Life doesn’t go as planned and that’s okay, that’s what makes it so special.  Sometimes everything is going your way and sometimes you want to crawl in a hole and die, that is what life is all about.  When you are tested and you will be and you aren’t sure how much more you can take give up control and let things happen instead of trying to make them twist into the direction you think they have to go.  Doesn’t matter what you are faced with, it’s all in the way you handle the challenges that matters.  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade but put some vodka in there too, that is sure to make you much happier, it works trust me! 

Life works in mysterious ways who knows why we end up where we do?  Someone once told me, it will all work out in the end.  So why not sit back give the keys to someone else and only grab the steering wheel for those important times.   When you let go of some control, life gets so much better.  Moving forward, I’m going to stop worrying about making the wrong decisions, it’s better to have tried and learned from bad decisions than to be frozen in place, like the northeast in the wintertime, making no decisions at all.  Remember all of our choices have brought us to this place in our lives, right here right now where we are supposed to be.  I’m going to let go of the control and see what happens, maybe I’ll enjoy life a little more if I loosen my grip and start to enjoy what’s in front of me.  Leave some room for serendipity in your life and for god sake, do what makes you happy and if you never figure out the answers to the questions in your head, maybe they weren’t that important in the first place.