You control your life or your life controls you?

One of my favorite movies is Kung Fu Panda. One of the best scenes is when Oogway, the wisest character in the movie, explains Shifu, his pupil, that controlling everything is impossible. Shifu argues that of course he can control things, he can take a peach seed, choose where to plant it and choose whether you eat the fruit or not. Oogway answers that you can’t control whether the peach blooms or not, nor when. Who do you think is right?
Personally, this idea that someone can control everything seems overwhelming. Besides, trying to is too exhausting as well as the perfect way for eternal frustration. On the other hand, the “new age” – as I say it – in which the universe, God or the invisible laws of Life (With capital letter as if it has conscience, personality or motive) rule everything and you just need to go with the flow, seems to me opportunistic and uncaring. If you don´t control anything, then you have no responsibilities and you can do nothing to change anything.
I used to think that that those were the only two options and neither of them agreed with me. Then, I met Michael and Blumenstein Theory, and I discovered a middle point from those perspectives. It’s called reality construction and in simple terms means that you have the power to control everything as long as it happens inside your head. Your thoughts, your feelings, your decisions, your expressions, your movements, are completely under your control. Then there are social systems, which are spaces where while you can´t control what happens, you have an influence in it. In there you are a co-owner. The other owners are the people whom you interact with. They are not in control either and they can also influence the results. For example, if you offer a scream, the other has control on his decision to how respond to your scream. If you don´t like the others response, you can exchange your scream for a calm phrase. And vice versa. What the others offer can invite you to respond in a X or Y way. Finally, it exists something named environment. No one has control of what happens there. Sometimes it rains, sometimes is sunny. It´s where the earth trembles, volcanos erupt, wind blows and life continues its cycle, some come and some leave.
And this way of seeing the world completely agrees with me. The world doesn’t depend on my thoughts or decisions (or cares for that matter) and at the same time MY world totally depends on what I think and decide.
I don´t control others and others don´t control me. No one can decide for me as well as I can´t decide for others. No one can make me angry as I can´t make someone angry. I am totally responsible of me, myself and I and no one else. So are the others.
Things don´t depend on loyalties, destinies or on whatever my family did seven generations ago, they depend on me, my actions and my decisions and on how I react before the decisions of others and on the things of the environment I can´t control. The apple falls because gravity exists and you can´t control or change that. And it’s me who decides if I let it fall, pick it up, wash it, eat it or don´t wash it and eat it anyway.
I´ve discovered that this way of seeing life brings out two things in me. One, a sensation of infinite potential. I can change my life and make it my way as much as I want to. Two, a peaceful and calming sensation. The world doesn´t depends on me, nobody´s life depends on me and there are things that are going to happen without reason or explanation and there is nothing I can do about it.
Is this the absolute truth? I would never dare to say so. It´s just a way of thinking that agrees better with me. Blumenstein Theory is just a proposal, an explanation on how the world works. A set of instructions to live a better life. If they agree with you as much as they agree with me, welcome. If not, also welcome. And that’s the topic for next week.
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