Under control. This has a negative connotation doesn’t it? It can. To be under someone’s control is to be at their bidding. Do you trust the person? Do they have your best interest in mind? Are they asking things of you that will make you a better person? Or are they using you? To be under someone else’s control can be a very unsettling feeling.
It can also have a very positive meaning. To be under control means you are operating within a set of guidelines. You are performing well. You are succeeding. A man who can control himself (his tongue and his actions and his thoughts) is a man who can change the world around him. Someone that is under control can respond well as things come at them. It is purposeful action. This leads to somewhere specific.
You can look around and see many examples today of men and women who are not in control of themselves or their world. (I say this knowing that you can not control every aspect of your world, but you can make decisions that lead to many more positive outcomes that negative ones.) How many people do you see in the drive through line at the local fast food place who are quite obviously unhealthy? How many people have you seen that are extremely bright, but can’t put down the beer long enough to find focus? How many people do you know who would rather spend four to six hours an evening on the couch watching TV as opposed to exercising, reading, playing with family, or other lasting activities? We live in a world that has lost control.
Many people want to find this. They want their lives to be lived with purpose. Many feel like they are wandering with no hope of finding direction. Do you know how this feels? I do. I know the feeling very well. I spent most of a decade feeling this way. You feel lost. Your brain is fuzzy. You want to do things, but always find excuses not to. Then, one day, you wake up and look in the mirror and you don’t recognize who you see. Where there stood a person full of life and vigor stands an overweight and under motivated individual who has lost most of his drive and focus.
The cold hard truth is this: we are always under control. If we are not making conscious choices for ourselves and our futures we are in trouble. There is a whole world full of people out there willing to take you the way they want you to go.
David Willis 