It’s not a great feeling to have your life out of control, but that’s usually the way it is.  We would like to be able to control lots of things in our lives, but that just isn’t realistic.  Most of us are familiar with the saying “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  I had this hanging on my wall when I was growing up, but I have to admit I didn’t really give it that much thought.

How much can you really control?  The answer is: not much.  We can control our own behavior, and how we choose to react when things happen to us.  It’s hard, but we can do it.  And really, that’s about all we can do.  Our lives are just one event after another of someone else’s choices affecting us, and then us having to decide how we are going to react.

What that saying means to me is this:  focus on what I can change, which is my own attitude, and have the strength to make the hard choices to have the best attitude possible, then just let the rest happen.  Otherwise we spend so much time and energy trying to control things, and failing, and feeling frustrated at our failure.  Which of those seems like a better option to you?

One of my two main rules for life is that the harder choice is usually the right choice.  You don’t get where you want to be in life by taking the easy path.

Every day we are faced with choices to make.  Many of them are trivial, and really don’t matter very much.  But some of them are important.  Some of them seem trivial at the time, but later you realize that they were actually important.  When it comes to making the right choice, it’s almost always the harder one.

This is the way things should be.  Why should someone making easy choices get rewarded for them?  This is true for all aspects of life.  You don’t get a great body by choosing to eat junk food and playing video games instead of exercising.  You don’t get true life-long friends by neglecting them when they need your help.

Your whole life is made up of choices.  Some are just about you, and some are about your relationships with others.  But no matter what they’re about, the harder choice is almost always the right choice for your life.

You can’t use reason to get out of this one.  Whatever “this one” is, your emotions win the battle.  I like to think of us as having two minds; an emotional mind and a rational mind.  We all think of things in two ways; from a purely emotional point of view, as well as a logical, reasoned point of view.  We think of all the good, rational reasons that we should feel a certain way, and then we frequently do the exact opposite.

In the battle of your rational mind versus your emotional mind, emotions win.  Think of it this way.  Think of one thing that you are afraid of; spiders, the dark, heights, asking someone on a date.  When you think about it logically, it doesn’t really make sense to be afraid.  Most spiders are harmless, the only real danger in the dark is that you’ll stub your toe, there isn’t any real danger of looking out the 24th floor window, and the worst that happens when you ask someone out is that they say no.  So now you’re not afraid any more, right?  Of course you are, because fear is an emotional response, and emotions win over logic.

So is there a solution?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  The best way to re-shape emotions is through conditioning; you face your fear, so you’re no longer afraid.  I’ve been afraid of water my whole life.  I took a scuba diving course, I practiced until I could swim a mile, and I’m still somewhat uncomfortable in water.  But, now I can swim across the lake and not be afraid.  I’m not going to promise you that it will always work, but I do believe that facing your fears is nearly always a better option than hiding from them and continuing to be afraid.  At least if you face them, you can tell yourself that you really tried.

Sometimes you’re just going to have to tell your emotional mind that while you value its opinion, you’re going to do something else this time.  You force your rational mind to call the shots for a little while.  This is not an easy thing to do, but as usual, the harder choice is the right choice.

Accept that your emotions have value, but they can also hold you back.  Sometimes you have to rely on some logic and reason to push your way through and get what you want.  Try it the next time you feel your fear holding you back from something.  I think you’ll be surprised at how strong you can be.