Control

 Control sounds like a good thing. The kind of word that makes you sit up straighter. Get your life together. Fix the mess. “Take control.” That’s what we’re told from day one. Control your emotions. Control your future. Control your destiny. It’s practically tattooed on every motivational poster that’s ever existed.

But the problem is, control isn’t what we think it is. It’s not the steering wheel we picture it to be. It’s more like trying to hold onto water. The tighter you squeeze, the less of it you actually have.

Think about it.
Let’s say you plan your day to the last minute: the perfect morning routine, the productivity playlist on shuffle. Then maybe you’re stuck in traffic, or that meeting went on for longer than it should, and your whole timetable is derailed. That’s when you feel the panic disguised as control. The moment you realize that the universe doesn’t use a Google Calendar API.

Control is considered to be somewhat of a cure to chaos, but sometimes it’s the cause. Because when you’re obsessed with keeping everything in line, you stop living. Micromanagement drives your own life into a spreadsheet, and any surprise feels like failure instead of how it should be perceived. A plot twist.

The worst part? We admire people who look like they’re in control. The ones who never break a sweat, whose lives look like the minimalist tech everyone’s obsessed with. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find that the people who look most in control are usually the ones who’ve learned how to let go of it. They don’t fight the tide; they learn to surf.

There’s a version of control that isn’t rigid. The kind that feels more like flowing rather than a dictatorship. A musician’s improv isn’t control. It’s trust in their instincts, trust in the others playing beside them, and trust that the music will find its way.

Maybe that’s what real control looks like. Not a hand gripping tighter, but one that knows when to release. Not a life built on rules, but one guided by rhythm.