SYTB 29: The Illusion of Control

Putting your focus where you can make a difference.

I think the biggest allure of the state is that one feels one has some semblance of control over things that are just radical, things that are so big, they could crush us in seconds flat. We need to feel like there’s something we can do about the impending doom from the world around us. So we walk into a little confessional sized booth and secretly mark our check on the ballot, and feel we might have made a difference or possibly saved our asses. We feel like if we can talk loud enough and get enough people on board with our understanding of why this set of rules we place arbitrarily on other people is better than that set of rules to be placed arbitrarily on other people, we might stay off doom. You don’t have to watch this program for very long to learn that even winning is fixed against all the players. One way or another, if the system could screw you, it has eventually anyway.

But, when I stop to think of how much energy I spent caring about politics and trying to understand how to get people to see it my way, I am just exhausted thinking back on it. All that frustration and fear I suffered just to end up losing either way. What’s worse? I learned as soon as I abandoned the notion of the state: my energy could go to productive things, fruitful things that could make a real difference to saving my own ass regardless of what the bobble heads said or did. That was the hope I needed all along.

Let’s look back on your film. Where are you today in making the picture of your life come together? Production costs might be soaring, somebody called in sick, equipment malfunctioned and your cast needs to get paid by Friday or else; these are all examples of how things seem out of control. They seem to be taking you away from your focus, inside your frame. They seem to be steering you away from completing your picture. This is the best time to keep working on what you have control over. Always ask, what can I do right now?

This may not come to you right away.

Slowly, some instruction will show up. Sometimes it’s not what you think. It might be to take a coffee to someone who is struggling or even to go back to bed, as counter intuitive as that sounds. But when you wake up or step away or invest in some act of service to yourself or others, you clear the slate of worry and fear just enough to be able to plan your next move. Remember, we talked about needing the blank page from which to create. Fear and worry or even indecision are far from a blank page.

When I was living in a second story apartment, all I wanted was earth to be able to put my plants in. I thought growing my own food would make me recession proof. I sat on my balcony day after day like Rapunzel, literally sunning myself and combing my hair while hoping someone would save me and buy me the perfect plot of land. Then, I got active in my complex with trash clean up and as I walked around, I noticed people’s patio gardens. It inspired me. I thought, I can do that! To be honest, I was able to grow more food on my patio than I did after we moved into our first house in Utah with all the water shortages, sprinkler shut-offs, constant weeding and heat waves that happened once we finally had some land.

Getting into the framework and upholding your boundaries has less to do with having all the right circumstances and has more to do with making your circumstances work for you.

I had been working on this very course, scripting it out day and night. All the while, my recording studio which I dumped thousands of dollars into to make this class into a live interactive experience, suddenly went caput. I had been trying to figure out what was wrong for months, trouble shooting, calling experts and driving myself mad while I kept my nose to the grindstone and finished writing the script. Lo and behold, as I was nearing the end of my writing phase and the recording phase was drawing dangerously nearer, I unplugged everything one night, plugged it back in the next day (like I’d done a gazillion times before) and this time, it worked!

The lesson may be, that if you keep doing what you need to do, everything will work itself out to get you across the finish line in due time.

I think this also applies to my codependent friends. Sometimes, you try so hard to figure out how to solve other people’s problems, knowing they can just fuck themselves up anyway no matter how much work you put into them, that you exhaust yourself in futility. You may miss opportunities in all that to be there for yourself. In some cases, you might even be abandoning yourself to help others who don’t even value your care very much.

Have you ever considered this scenario? What if someone invested in you what you invest in others? How much would that change your life? How accountable would you feel, knowing someone was taking an invested interest in your life to not let them down?

I think a lot of us hear the Bible story about the landlord giving the talents to the workers. One buries it. One squanders it. One makes a fortune with it. We always think, if someone gave me what I give others, I would make a fortune with it. In truth, you HAVE been given talents, time, attention, wealth. You have been given all sorts of resources. When you just give all that you have to others, you are as good as squandering it or putting it in a hole in the ground- if you can get any return on it. The point is, we often overlook what we have. We often get so caught up in sacrifice that we are unable to afford charity. Wealthy people, people who invest in themselves first have a lot to give without depleting themselves.

I have heard this passage of scripture a gazillion times from Malachi. It talks about tithing and bringing your tithes (that’s one tenth) of all you have to the storehouse. Most people assume this means to give it to church or charity. Even my prosperity teacher, Edwene Gaines interprets this passage to mean to give to God’s good work in the world. She says give one tenth to where you receive your spiritual food. I always liked that. But… What if it simply means to put your tenth in a literal storehouse? Back in the times ol’ Malachi was written, a storehouse would be like a personal food bank. It would be where one kept a little extra aside from the harvest in dried goods and less perishables to save for a rainy day. This way, one might accumulate wealth little by little to have in case of famine or draught. Today, we call that a savings account.

The more I think about it, the more this makes sense to me. I don’t think God wants people giving a tenth of what they have away if they don’t have some kind of personal security. Sure, give a tenth-AFTER you make sure you have something to fall back on. Otherwise, you are taking the speck out of your brother’s eye with your small donation while a log of debts and financial insecurity is piling up in your own. It’s not charity if by giving, you become the person in need of charity. Then, it’s just sacrifice and trading places with people in need. You’re only better off trading places if A. you can guarantee you can quickly get yourself in a better situation and B. you are certain the other person won’t get him or herself right back where you are. What you don’t need is to take someone’s place in hell for a few minutes until they get themselves back and join you again for eternity.

I want all my Christian and non Christian people to pay attention to this next part. I know it will sound religious, but there’s a lesson in this for everyone if you hang with me a minute. Jesus was supposed to be an example in every way EXCEPT ONE. There is only one thing that Jesus did that He instructed us wasn’t for us to do. It wasn’t miracles. We are supposed to do greater miracles. It wasn’t perfection. Although we don’t “need” to be perfect. He has made us so with his sacrifice according to scripture. There it is. The one thing was sacrifice. His sacrifice was supposed to be the last, the ultimate sacrifice to replace all of our past, present and future sacrifices. You may not be into Jesus but hear me out. We all can fall into the trap of sacrifice. Christian and non Christian alike. But if Christians, the most prone to see this act as a virtue modeling themselves after Jesus were instructed we’d never need to partake in this practice, surely, the rest of humanity can stop feeling called to it.

We should all be living in heaven ideally. But the only person whose destiny you can control is yours. I mean heaven in as much a literal sense as a metaphorical one. Heaven to me is literally the space I am inhabiting when I am enjoying people I love, living from my passions, learning new things and acting creatively in the world, fruitful and bountiful! I get that right here if my focus is in the right place. This state of heaven is the only state upon which one may be charitable.

So, now that we flipped the entire notion of tithing and giving on its head, destroyed the idea of the nobility of sacrifice and turned charity over to the heavenly, I’ll probably be the dismay of every religious group ever organized. Let’s start looking at things we can do with our talents today!

Get out your journal.

What are ten things you can do this week to bring you closer to your dreams?

What can you do to put yourself immediately in the experience of living in heaven today?

What is one impactful thing you would like to do in the world, charity wise, once you are living in a heavenly state consistently?

How can you share a slice of heaven, true charity with another today, needless to say, without sacrifice?