These 3 Lies About Control Are Sabotaging Your Life (and What to Do Instead)
A Contemporary Take on the Tao Te Ching’s First Lesson
It was our honeymoon trip to Italy. There we stood, trapped in the slowest airport security line imaginable.
My wife paced anxiously, checking the time again and again. Her worry escalated with every passing minute. Meanwhile, I opened a Kindle book and began reading, surrendering to the chaos.
We were in the exact same situation—but our experience of it was radically different. She was deeply attached to having a smooth travel experience, and that attachment triggered a desire to control every detail. When it became clear she couldn’t, frustration took over.
We did make the flight—a kind staff member noticed the long line, asked whose flight was near, and opened a shortcut. But only one of us enjoyed those moments leading up to it.
Control is seductive. Sometimes it’s necessary—like steering your car in traffic. But most of the time, the craving for control hijacks your peace. We get upset over rain, a partner’s bad mood, a misbehaving child, or a disorganized boss.
Small annoyances pile up into chronic frustration. Our days become riddled with tension we can’t quite name, and our joy is quietly drained.
The Illusion of Absolute Control
From an early age, we’re taught that control is power.
Bestsellers reinforce the message. How to Win Friends and Influence People suggests relationships can be managed like chess pieces. The 4-Hour Workweek promises you can dictate your schedule and bend life to your will. Awaken the Giant Within implies the truly successful are in full command of their destiny.
But life inevitably slips beyond our grasp. Flights get canceled. Children get sick. Loved ones leave. Bosses change their minds. And in those moments, we often panic—not because the events are catastrophic, but because we expected to be in control.
We yell. We withdraw. We drink or distract ourselves. Or worse, we suppress the anger so deeply it manifests as pain in our bodies. Even when control returns, the peace doesn’t last. The next crisis is always just around the corner.
Control is an elaborate facade. Behind every polished smile and curated life on social media lies some version of chaos.
I know someone whose father is a billionaire. From the outside, it looks like she has everything. But her husband cheats repeatedly, and her child frequently fails at school. If you didn’t know her story, you’d assume she has it all figured out—thanks to her Porsche, luxury clothes, and long vacation getaways.
She doesn’t. None of us do.
Because the one constant in life is change. No one controls the tide.
The 3 Lies You’ve Been Told About Control
Here’s the paradox: the only people who seem truly "in control" are the ones who’ve let go of needing to be. They flow with life like eagles riding the wind. They don’t fight the breeze—they adjust their wings.
This isn’t passivity. It’s alignment. It’s grace under pressure. It’s responding rather than resisting.
Here are three lies you’ve likely internalized about control—and the truths that can set you free:
1. “I can fully control my life and destiny.”
You can influence your path. You can take action, make wise choices, and even harness some "law of attraction" ideas if they help. But you can't fully control your destiny.
To believe otherwise is to overestimate your mind’s power and underestimate the mystery of existence. The Tao Te Ching puts it clearly:
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name." — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, Verse 1
The mechanism that drives the universe is far too vast for any of us to fully grasp. Consider a speck of dust. It may seem meaningless, but its presence depends on billions of interactions, spanning time and space.
Every event you try to control is a dust mote in a cosmic web of causation. Your effort matters—but it’s one thread in a vast, unknowable tapestry.
2. “There is good and bad, and I must control life to get more good and avoid the bad.”
The Tao Te Ching continues:
"The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things." — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, Verse 2
What is eternally real is neither good nor bad. But when we name, label, or judge things, we turn them into particular "good" or "bad" events. These judgments are born from a limited perspective—past pain, old beliefs, and incomplete stories.
That job loss? It might open space for something better. That delayed flight? It might lead to a meaningful conversation in the airport. That painful breakup? It might reconnect you with your own worth.
Remember the Chinese parable "The Old Man Who Lost His Horse"—The Old Man Who Lost His Horse.
A man’s prized horse ran away, and his neighbors called it a great misfortune. He calmly replied, "Who knows what’s good or bad?" Days later, the horse returned, bringing a strong wild stallion with it. The neighbors now congratulated him on his good fortune. Again, he said, "Who knows what’s good or bad?" Later, his son broke his leg while riding the new horse. The villagers lamented. The old man remained at peace. Soon after, the army came to draft all able-bodied young men for war. His injured son was spared. Others never returned.
What first seemed bad turned out to be good—and what seemed good, bad. Each event unfolded in ways no one could predict.
3. “If I lose control, everything will fall apart.”
This is the ego’s favorite lie. It whispers that if we let go, we’ll lose everything. But the opposite is often true.
"Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations." — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, Verse 3
When we are addicted to control, we’re caught in desire. We see only the surface—the manifestations in front of us or impressions from the past. This limited perspective keeps us reactive.
But when we let go of control, we become free of desire. We begin to see the mystery—the larger unfolding, the hidden order behind events. We can intuitively dance with life and align with a higher good.
Michael A. Singer, author of The Surrender Experiment, was already a dedicated spiritual practitioner and teacher long before he started his business. He believed that spirituality meant isolating himself in the woods and silencing the mind. He resisted work, relationships, and worldly involvement. But eventually, he decided to surrender—to let go of his rigid ideas about spirituality and say yes to what life presented.
One yes led to another. He became an entrepreneur. Built a successful company. Eventually sold it for nearly $5 billion. Yet throughout it all, he continued to meditate daily, teach spiritual talks at his center, and live by the same spiritual values. His business success funded the expansion of his spiritual center—far beyond what he could’ve created alone.
If he had stayed in the woods, clinging to his concept of spirituality, he might still be trying to silence his mind. Instead, his surrender experiment—fully engaging with life rather than retreating from it—brought him not only wealth, impact, and a thriving spiritual community, but also a deepening of the very spiritual growth he originally sought.
In letting go, he didn't lose his path—he expanded it.
Balance Control with Allowing: 3 Simple Practices
Letting go of control isn’t a one-time epiphany. It’s a practice. Here’s how to begin:
1.Pause and Recognize Your Limitations in Control
When things go wrong, pause. Take a step back from your conditioned reactions. Picture yourself as a single point of awareness on a spinning planet in an infinite cosmos. Notice how much is not in your hands—the weather, the traffic, someone else's words or moods. When you realize the limits of what you can truly influence, it creates space for ease.
You don’t disappear in that humility. You expand. By honoring your limitations, you make room for greater perspective, compassion, and clarity. And with that, your limited judgment—that this shouldn’t be happening—starts to soften and lose its grip.
2.Suspend Judgment of Good or Bad That Drives Control Efforts
Catch yourself when you label something as good or bad. Pause. Consider the possibility that your assessment might be premature—or entirely false. Life is too vast to be reduced to snap evaluations. Remember "The Old Man Who Lost His Horse"—what seems bad may hold hidden blessings. What looks perfect may unravel.
Every judgment is a product of your past experiences and mental conditioning. They shrink the possibilities of the present moment. Letting go of judgment doesn’t mean apathy; it means remaining curious and open-hearted. The less you rush to name something, the more wisdom you allow to emerge.
3. Release the Feelings That Fuel Your Attachment to Control
Every time you’re triggered—by a delay, a criticism, or someone not acting as you hoped—look beneath the surface. There’s almost always a controlling intention underneath, along with negative emotions that support it.
These feelings aren’t wrong. They’re human. But when we cling to them, they send a false signal that the urge to control is completely justified. They prevent us from asking the deeper question: do I even need to control this at all?
Instead, observe the feeling and let the thoughts pass. Don’t follow the storyline. Breathe through the emotion without reacting. This is the practice of allowing—letting feelings rise and fall without letting them dictate your behavior. As the emotional charge softens, clarity emerges. Suddenly, you see whether the moment calls for effort—or surrender.
Over time, this dissolves reactivity. You respond with choice, not compulsion. You become a calmer, clearer channel for action—not because you forced it, but because you made space for it.