Take it Easy!

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves. - Victor Frankl

All paths lead back to the origin. Back to the root. Back to control. From the halls of Abdeen Palace in Egypt on this very day, to the moment your ex-significant other cut the relationship ties, to the rejection letter from your dream college, to the passing of a loved one, to being fired from your job for arriving late. Our most painful memories, as well as all of our problems, converge on the loss of control in the midst of addiction to... well, control. Things should work and do work as we expect them to - but only in the fantastical world of the mind. Reality works through different forces.

We weave the sense of control into existence through an autonomous development of expectations. Like a faceless and shapeless structural engineer of the mind, our frontal lobe lays down the imaginary steel tracks for the train of expectations to travel through. But in reality, the tracks aren't made of steel. They are as void of substance as the engineer who laid them. But we live our lives as if the opposite were true. And each and every time that the train of expectations derails from these illusory tracks, it crashes into the sensitive and vulnerable regions of our minds. When our expectations are not met, we hurt, we lose confidence, and we lose trust. The problem is that our brains have evolved to become hyperactive, relentless, merciless, and seemingly unstoppable creators of expectations. I believe that here, exactly here, lies the key to our unresolved potential for lasting happiness. We gotta take it easy.

The instinct to control our environment is extremely primitive. Our bipedal hominid ancestors established very basic measures of control such as hoarding food and protecting territorial boundaries for the simple and straightforward purpose of prolonging their existence. "Me save deer leg for cold day." I would assume they spent the rest of the day sitting on their ass in a cave, chillin, and maybe drawing elephants and bushes on rare occasions. In this setting, the instinct to control served them well, precisely because it had very few applications, but all critical to their existence. The instinct to control has prevailed in the gene pool until the present day, where its purpose as a mechanism for self-preservation has, for the most part, completely vanished. It inundates our lives to the point we vehemently attempt to control every thought, every want, and every whim our minds can produce. But to what end? It's not about the deer leg anymore.

It's about controlling everything we think we need. And what exactly do we need? If you ask your parents, it's to get a degree. If you ask your wife, it's to get a [better] job. If you ask your history professor, it's to study history.  If you watch FOX, it's to buy gas masks for the impending biological terrorist attacks. If you watch Lifetime, it's to find a knight in shining armor. If you watch commercials, it might be a million and one different things, from plastic surgery to the Twilight Eclipse Blu-ray. Our control sensor twitches with each "need" input, urging us to acquire, or rather, attempt to control our external environment in some way. But again, this control sensor was meant to prolong our existence, not to drive us crazy. We won't face impending doom without a Twilight Blu-ray, college degree, gas mask, or breast implants, but we may very well feel like we will.

A recent psychology study confirmed that the effect of increased or decreased income levels on happiness is almost negligible. Controlling our environment through acquisition, consumption, and wealth accumulation does shit for our levels of happiness apart from perhaps a 10-second head rush. Instead the constant mental rumination and mind wandering about what we want/need to control actually makes us less happy. And we do this a lot without realizing it. For this reason, I say we are conditioned to take our present 21st century lives too seriously, thus taking ourselves too seriously. Our needs, our wants, our pursuits, our material goods, our relationships... we would live much happier lives by not exerting our junkie-like addiction to control everything and everyone around us. Let them happen as they do happen. Let the pieces fall where they may. Let it be.

Eastern philosophies are popular in the west because they provide a method of doing exactly this, while western societies promote more worry, more stress, and more vain attempts to control. Armani, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, BMW, Patek Philippe, and countless others will try to convince you that their products hold the same or even greater value than the deer leg. Our brains will believe it and alter our moods, behaviors, and thoughts as if these things truly mattered to some nebulous aspect of our existence. That's fucked up. But we don't just do this with material goods. Our addiction to control spreads to every single aspect of our lives, providing intermittent spurts of happiness at the very best, and disastrous plunges into the bowels of depression and anxiety at the worst. Life is not so complicated, but we make it so. "Take it easy" may then be the most worthwhile piece of advice ever uttered by a rational being.