I don’t need to set this up at all… you know — sometimes when you’re doing some sort of sales, and you want to make a point, or propose some sort of solution to people’s felt needs, you first must articulate the problem we’re all facing… So if you’re a door-to-door vacuum salesman, you have to talk about how dirty floors ruin your day. Or how heavy other vacuums are. You have to remind people of the problem so that your solution FEELS more revelatory. If you paint a compelling picture of how bad a problem is, and then pitch your product, you’ll likely make some sales.    Same thing with public speaking. If you have a point to make, you need to set it up with all the failed solutions we’ve tried thus far… You need to shine a spotlight on how ugly things are, so that you can propose a beautiful alternative and people will lean into it. It’s why old-school preachers used to talk about Hell so much. It’s psychology. Scare people into a vulnerable place, and then propose some sort of safety… and all you have to do is pray a prayer and put a $50 in the offering.    Well — this is a long walk to get to this simple point: I don’t feel like I need to articulate ANY of the shit we’ve been going through this year thus far. You guys know. And in fact, if I go back through it all, like so many podcasts and political pundits do, it’ll likely only trigger MORE ANXIETY than I’ll be able to alleviate.    Because we’re all already AT that vulnerable, out-of-control spot you want an audience in, let’s just start talking.    This year, thus far, has hopefully taught you a few lessons about control. About how little control you have over certain parts in your life. About which areas of your life you truly, actually, continually can control — and that’s something interesting we might talk about here. About the tendencies you recognize in yourself that wants so deeply to be able to control how other people behave, or vote, or what they believe, or what they tweet, or what your boss thinks is reasonable, or expectations for kids during this school year.    This desire to control is understandable. Don’t beat yourself up for it. We’ve been trying to exercise control over our surroundings since the dawn of time. Think of our ancient ancestors. Clearing brush to set up a campsite. Fighting back the cold nights with a big fire. Turning fields of weeds into neatly planted rows of vegetables.    And every generation in the history of civilization… they’ve been marked by the human desire to control some new aspect of our lives that was previously uncontrollable.    We learned how to control food supply.  We learned how to control water distribution and aqueducts and sewage.  We learned how to control elements and forge them into metal structures and weapons and tools.  We learned how organize people groups into different political experiments and democracies.  We’ve learned to control certain diseases and outbreaks.  We’ve developed vaccines and controlled variables to make living life safer and more predictable—extending life expectancies, and improving quality of life tenfold every generation.    Indoor plumbing, air conditioning, birth control… All good things.    Our desire to control is something we’ve inherited from our ancestors. And it isn’t something we should hate about ourselves. But it is something we need to be aware of its limitations, or else we might be tricked into believing we can control EVERYTHING, which leads to the inevitable shock that “No, we cannot control everything” which leads to anxiety that says, “But i SHOULD be able to control everything,” which might be where some of us are today.    This year has taught me that I can’t control my children. We had a honeymoon phase around age 3 to 5, but now that two of them are north of that, they’re just showing us that “No, you cannot control us, no matter how hard you try.”    This year has taught me that I can’t control my income. I can’t predict any better than my 5 year old which new client will walk through our doors…some with enormous budgets, some with no money at all.    This year has taught me that I can’t control what people think of me. I can try to “signal” who I am and what I care about and what people can expect from me, but how someone internalizes and crafts my reputation in their eyes is entirely up to them.   This year, I’ve learned that I can’t control my own body’s physiology and what chemicals release from my brain at which times… There are days of unexpected gloom, and then days when I give myself over to it and experience joy and freedom like no other. I don’t understand that — and I certainly can’t control it.    I’ve learned that I can’t make other people’s decisions for them. As deeply as I want to help people and want to influence them to make — now let me be clear, what IIIIIII think is the right life decision — they’re entirely free to choose whatever career path, or subscribe to whatever ideology, or raise their kids in whatever way…    But in all of these lessons that 2020 has taught us thus far, which we’ll likely be unpacking for the next decade in therapy, there is a helpful way to turn the gem on the thinking here, and that’s what I want to share.    I spend far too much time in my own life trying to CONTROL things that I’m only ever actually responsible for RESPONDING to. I want to CONTROL, but God just expects me to respond.    How many things do I try to control, by hustling in front of, during and after, to get the outcome I want… Texting people on the side, getting consensus, try to do some insider trading to limit any variables from surprising us… versus simply letting what will happen, happen, and then responding accordingly.    One of the things Elyse and I have learned by taking care of our daughters Type-1 Diabetes is exactly this… when they introduce you to the disease, the doctor’s all use the word “manage.” “Managing Type 1…” Meaning, we’ll never get ahead of it, more than a few hours at a time. It’s an hour by hour thing that we need to respond to… we’re managing something that is wildly unpredictable, and if we spend our lives trying to CONTROL it, we’ll die of exhaustion and despair. Instead, if we use the tools given to us, and we pay attention to what’s happening, then we can respond accordingly… and as a result, the next few hours can be good.    It’s something that sailors understand that motorboats don’t. Baked into the very essence of sailing is the baseline understanding that you can’t control the wind. It’s silly to even suggest otherwise. And as a result, sailors are experts at RESPONDING to unpredictable shifts in weather. Because that’s all sailing is anyways — responding to the wind.    The wind will blow wherever and however the wind will blow. And you have these little tools in these ropes and sails and rudders to respond — and catch that wind, lean into it, and maybe go somewhere with it.    Motorboats are just like, “I turn this wheel and push this button and I go there.” Which, let’s be honest, was invented because we wanted to be able to CONTROL the sea. And thank God for motorboats.    But there are situations that simply can’t be tamed… And we’re in the middle of one. And this might just be the middle. Who the hell knows?    We can contribute to this presidential election, but we can’t control what’s going to happen. We can’t control what our neighbors are doing and how safe they’re staying during this pandemic, but we can respond by wearing a mask around them. We can’t control our income or job security, but we can respond by making conservative decisions with our money. We can’t control everything about our health, but we can respond by eating well and moving our bodies to ensure our immune system is as healthy as possible.    I wonder how much of our daily anxieties would loosen up if we stopped putting expectations on ourselves to CONTROL things, and gave ourselves some grace to simply RESPOND to all these external variables and stimuli.    If you want to come out of the closet, you can’t control how your family will react — but you can step into that with open hands and then simply respond to them accordingly.    And I think RESPONSE is something we can get good at. That’s a skill we can hone in on and refine. We can improve the speed at which we can wisely respond. We can become better decision-makers, learning to research and weigh pros and cons and respond accordingly.    So this is the challenge… Thinks about your day today. What’s one area of your life that you’ve been trying to CONTROL that might benefit from you instead letting it unfold a bit and then responding accordingly… This isn’t passivity — it’s humility and keen observation and prayerful decision-making.   What’s something that’s been consuming your thoughts and has aggregated into actual anxiety lately? Something your heart knows you cannot control, but you brain can’t stop trying to control…    Maybe it’s the safety of your kids at school. Maybe it’s the stock market. Maybe it’s how someone has been treating you. Maybe it’s a spouse or partner or child that you’ve been desperately trying to guide and micromanage, for fear of something going off the rails…    And for what it’s worth: some of these things are actually self-fulfilling prophecies… We so desperately want to CONTROL something, so we inadvertently smother it and ruin any chance it had of being healthy.    The most common cause of new seeds withering after they’ve germinated is OVER-watering. We’re so eager to help them start their new lives that we literally drown them… Sound familiar?   So here’s the challenge for us today, myself included… Step back, just far enough, to catch yourself in the act with one of these things… Acknowledge that trying to control that person or thing is likely the source of some of this anxiety… no matter how much you want it to go your way, no matter how important this thing is to you… To shift your thinking enough to create space for that thing to unfold however it’s going to unfold, and then be very intentional about responding to it.    Once it happens, then you’re ENTIRELY in control of your response. Get all your need to control and ball it up into your response. Because THAT you can control. And if you REALLY want to kick your anxiety in the nuts, spend some time you would be anxiety trying to control the situation instead planning the various ways you might respond whenever your response is needed.   Because in a lot of ways, our anxiety is a result of living in an already/not-yet kind of tension where our brains are somewhere in the future catastrophizing the worst possible scenario… and if instead we spend time thinking through our various options for how we might respond afterwards, we might find that it actually alleviates our anxieties.    Stop trying to control everything and instead control your response to the world around you. I think this is a step in the right direction for me… I think this helps me live more wisely, and more at peace with the chaos around me. And maybe it’ll help you too.    I love you guys. Share this episode with a friend. Make it a good day.