You Never Have Complete Control

If we could control the wind patterns, then we could have all the rain that is dumped on us delivered to the places where the fires are burning, but we are at the mercy of mother nature.  I can control what I watch on TV, but if my cable goes out, or my power is down, or my internet connection is lost, then I must find some other way to occupy myself.  You can have some control over your career, but if you are not independently rich, you may have to swallow your pride and perform certain undesirable tasks, or work with people that you don’t like.  It is great when things just happen without us having to control them, like going to sleep and having a dream, as without spontaneity, we might as well be robots.  Nobody wants to be in control of every breath that they take, or having to direct our hearts to pump blood, or telling our hair and nails how much they should grow, as these things must occur automatically, otherwise our brains would be all scrambled with extraneous flotsam and jetsam taking over our whole lives.

Some people have arraigned marriages and many of them work out fine, but even though you can pick your seat and pick your nose, you can’t choose your relatives.  You get stuck with a lot of things in life and it is up to you to determine how you are going to deal with that.  Many of the mundane things that I do, I have control over, like if I decide to brush my teeth or take a shower, but many other things in life are out of my control, even the writing that I do is mostly controlled by prompts.  Just because somebody puts out a prompt, that does not force ne to write about that topic, as I have control on what interests me.  When I decide to write about something, I have already taken the plunge and I am along for the ride wherever it takes me.

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger wrote a song titled ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ which is about the control that someone has in their life and their solution is that a person can get what they need out of their life.  Joni Mitchel summed this up pretty well with her song ‘Both Sides Now’ saying, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now – From win and lose and still somehow – It’s life’s illusions I recall – I really don’t know life at all”.

Written for FOWC with Fandango – Extraneous and for Fandango’s Provocative Question #88 which asks, “To what degree have you been able to control the course that your life has taken?  Or is being in control of your life just an illusion?”