Many people, including myself, have this driving need to control everything in their lives.

The need to have absolute control is a survival mechanism. We think if we’re in control that nothing bad can happen and we won’t get hurt but, in reality, our control is limited. The majority of life’s occurrences are absolutely out of our control and when we’re faced with such an event, that makes us feel out of control, we have no idea what to do.

This causes racing thoughts about what we could have done differently to prevent this outcome from hurting us and making us unhappy. The “what ifs” are enough to drive someone out of their mind, especially when trying to overcome a trial that we had no control over.

To this, I say, “Let it go and just let it be.”

Acknowledging that we can not completely control everything in life provides a liberation from the constant marinating we often engage in that prevents us from moving on. You can’t control everything. You can’t control other people’s actions, you can’t control the weather, you can’t control if you get the flu, and you have no control over a bunch of other things that may happen.

Sure, you can take vitamins to keep your immune system healthy, you can try to manipulate others, and you can rely entirely on the weatherman’s forecast, but at the end of the day, none of these things can be one-hundred percent controlled. You can and will never be one-hundred percent certain about what each day will bring.

So, why spend so much time and energy trying to control everything?

No matter what you do, bad stuff is still going to happen, we’re still going to get hurt sometimes and life is not always going to go as we planned.

That is okay!

Let go of the need to have absolute control in your life. Once you do, you will find it much easier to enjoy and handle each moment as it comes to you. You will be able to find happiness with ease and you will find that your stress is significantly lessened.

Free yourself from the worry, the paranoia, the attempts at preventing things you can’t control anyway. Give yourself an opportunity to live, truly live, a life filled with happiness. A life in which you take it one day at a time because, in reality, we don’t know for sure if we will see tomorrow.

Be happy, make the most of your time and stop worrying about the sh*** you can’t control.