Some things are out of your control
- Kyle Snyder: Live on Purpose
- August 26, 2018
- 1552
“What worries you, masters you.” — John Locke.
What’s the point in worrying about things out of our control? Which of us can honestly say by worrying about things beyond our control that we are better people for it?
Ten times out of 10 we will only hurt ourselves. We may not be physically taking a razor and cutting ourselves, but in a way, when we worry about things we can do nothing about, we are doing that on the inside.
Think about it: Like cutting ourselves is self-harm, is worrying not also self-harm? We don’t have the cut on the outside, but we do in our souls.
I would think by now everyone who is reading this knows life isn’t fair. It can be downright brutal. It’s when we think we have life figured out that we get thrown a curve ball.
All in all life is pretty good, and from what we hear from other parts of the world, we have it pretty good. I know if I were born in a third world country, my family may be looked down upon as being cursed, or the government could come in and kill me just because I have cerebral palsy. I am thankful that not only was I born in a country that allows me to live, but also gives me opportunities to live out my dream that God has given me.
Yet we all can be very negative about how things in general are going in our life and in the world around us. One book I read by Max Lucado put it this way, “We are wrapped up tighter then an Egyptian mummy.” Now that is a great way of putting how far too many of us feel. We can’t even move. Worry has us wrapped so tightly we might trip if we try to walk.
I know people who just worry, to worry. One man who I talked to was worried about being fired from his job all the time. I asked him if they were letting people go where he worked. They were not letting people go. In fact they were at that time pretty busy.
I was completely dumbfounded. Why if they were busy was he worried about losing his job? The truth was he wasn’t confident in himself to do a good enough job, and he thought they would let him go. In the end he retired from the same job years later. All that time worrying about the job was wasted for nothing.
I never go into work worrying about still being employed at the end of the day. I just do what I can and know that I can’t do anymore. As long as I do my best, that’s all I can do. I have no evidence the next time I work will be my last.
Yes, if it was my last, I would worry about how I would make it, but I could try to find a new job or learn new skills and trust God that something would open up for me. That would be something I could do proactively.
Something played out on the national stage that some people liked and others completely hated. Some people even got therapy over what happened, but it didn’t really affect their day-to-day life.
I know one man who was so mad he became a very hard person to live with for weeks. Yet, what was he going to do about it? Even though some people were very bitter over this event, nothing could be done to change what happened in the past.
I wonder why people let it ruin their life. It didn’t really affect me and the way I live, so I couldn’t see me getting all bent out of shape over it. The people who were mad over it didn’t have any good ideas to change the result, so why get mad?
We need to start asking ourselves how something affects us and our loved ones. If the answer is not much or not at all, do us a favor and let it go. God only gave us so much time in this world. Why waste it on something out of our control?
We need to only concern ourselves with what we can control and leave the rest up to God to take care of.