I see parents do it with their kids in college: by calling their kid every day and "checking in on them," they make their presenceand their expectations--constantly clear. That's supposed to "motivate" the kid. Other parents try to give advice on every topic under the sun to their kids, fully expecting the children to follow that advice to the letter. This is called micromanaging, though, and it's usually more indicative of the parent's fear of failing the other person than it is of the kid's need for such constant input.
We simply fear being out of control. We fear watching things and events spiral out of control, harming us and those people we love. We fear facing a situation in which we have no control, and we fear situations reaching that point, so we try to "make sure" that nothing in our lives ever gets that far.
This fear, though, comes from a lack of confidence or faith in life and in God, whatever you perceive God to be. Life has been going on for many, many years without our input, and it's been going along fine. In fact, it seems clear that life has a harder time doing its thing the more we interfere with it. We're not willing to let the river flow as it will--we want to make sure that we control the amount of water that's flowing, the direction in which it flows, and when it stops and starts flowing. If we can do that, we can make sure that the river never will overflow its banks, and we can be sure that no one will be hurt by the river.
Trying to control life is a losing battle from the beginning. It's important that we step back and see whether our influence (not control) may be helpful or useful in a given situation, but if we constantly try to make sure that everything turns out fine, we will fail time and time again. Isn't it important to use our strength and power in situations in which we truly do have influence (in our jobs and relationships, for example, focused on our own actions) rather than in ways that are doomed to be wastes of that energy?
3 comments:
I agree with you too that trying to control everything in our life is not only unhealthy but impossible to do. We shall just leave certain things work by themselves. I specially dislike when parents try to control their kids too much even if it is with good intentions.
Fantastic points!
I totally agree, this whole thing of control is out of control.
We have so little faith in so much, but above all ourselves.
Unlike what religions and governments and parents and .... think, humans left to their own devises are actually more accountable for their actions and act out better for the greater good. Basically the more control there is in anything, the more people want to rebel. We are free spirits and trying to control us, as you say is a losing battle from the beginning.
I would like nuance your points here. You see control as a bad thing. Well, there are good and bad in control. But bottom line, it all comes to one thing: we want to control our environment to better our existence. But this need to control is a subconscious state of mind.
What are laws and Constitutions, but mere textbooks that frame human behavior for the better of the community? From that definition, we can derive that religious textbooks were the Constitutions and Penal Codes of former ages. And today we have written rules (laws) and unwritten ones (ethics and social codes).
We need these forms of control to maintain order. I know some will hate this word "order", I for one was a notorious leftist before, an anarchist even, with my personal motto as "fight the war, f... the norm". But as you grow up, life automatically puts you in line.
But i'd like to stress on one point here, the "social codes" that are unwritten. Human interactions are determined by their experience. Experience is exposure to former social interactions. From these experiences, we build a database from which we extract patterns.
These patterns allow us to pigeonhole situations and allow to make sense of our environment. Once we make sense of it, we can foresee consequences and predict the outcome of our actions. We act only once these mental processes have taken place. This is what prevents us from hurting people, damaging our role in society and that of others.
In any social interaction, control is necessary. Else it would be chaos. You're a Law student. This is familiar to you: "Mes droits et libertés s'arrêtent là ou commencent les vôtres".
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