We’d like to think that we are the “pilot” of our lives. We think we hold the controls in major instances of life. We believe so when we try to shape the future of our children or when we are trying to manage our reputation.
When we fail, we judge it as a lack of discipline or a failure of will. Consequently, we tell ourselves that if we were smarter, stronger, or more vigilant, we’d be better able to handle the turbulence of life. Ironically, we believe that the turbulence is our fault and steering through it is our burden.
The root of this issue is the belief that our value from what we do. We can’t relax in the first class. No, we have to be the ones to press all the knobs and lift all the levers. Being unable to control the plan means we have to put our trust in something unknown to us. Yet, with our flawed, limited ability, we’re almost destined to fail.
With this destiny of failure comes unneeded guilt simply because we believe that we could have steered differently.
We believe that we are the captains of this plane, and if we let go of the wheel, we will crash into rocks. It may take us to the point of exhaustion that we are willing to give up control. Not because we are weak, but because we never had control in the first place.
The crash that we fear is actually the much-needed resolution to the illusion of control. It’s the opportunity to finally rest.
Want to know how I know control is an illusion? If you needed to control every aspect of your body, you’d die. Life continues when we sleep. Who is beating your heart? Who is causing you to inhale and exhale? It’s certainly not you.
Life is already handling life. The need to control is a misplaced longing to feel the safety of this power.
The Intention of Management is Fear
We tend to mask our management as a virtue. We want to be managers because it proves that we are organized, we are “fixers”, and that we are on top of things.
Consequently, the need to oversee every little detail comes at a cost of sleepless nights and an inability to just be. In truth, we feel a lack. We believe that if we stop managing our world for even a moment, the world will stop loving us.
Every act of control is a silent whisper that says, “Love is not enough.” Any attempt to control a partner’s mood, a child’s choices, or our own future is an expression of telling yourself that the love shared between these relationships isn’t enough. The grace that you share within these relationships isn’t sufficient.
It’s almost like the intelligence of these people is somehow incapable of making their own choices, so it’s up to you to do it for them. Even worse, you believe that the intelligence of the universe can’t handle your 2pm meeting. It’s up to you to take control.
Management is easily just a form of resistance to what is taking place.
We believe that management comes with responsibility. If we don’t handle our responsibilities, everything will come crumbling down.
Beneath the manager role is a frightened child dressed in a suit. In reality, this person isn’t seeking power; they are seeking help. The need for control is a distorted form of the need for safety.
In most cases, the need for control was never an act of malice or pride, but a person merely in survival mode.
Actions as Identity
We’ve decided that it was a good idea to create identities around the things we “handle.” I made an identity out of being reliable, but as a counterpoint, if I inevitably came up short, I’d feel so much guilt.
We call ourselves the fixer, the strategist, or the protector. We take pride in our ability to manage our reputation, curate outcomes, and influence the people around us.
When we inevitably fail at our role, we don’t just feel frustrated. We feel the loss of our identity. We feel like nothing. When we inevitably fail, we chastise ourselves because we treat a mistake as a personal failure.
The Three Illusions We Are Responsible For
We’ve convinced ourselves that we are responsible for three primary illusions.
Reputation: The first one we will talk about is reputation. We believe that we must manage how people perceive us. This is the misbelief that an image in another’s mind has the power to define you.
Outcomes: I will not say that outcomes are an illusion. The common belief is that the future is a destination that we must build. As a result, we treat the present as a sacrifice for a result that doesn’t exist.
Others: We probably won’t ever admit it, but we do believe that we have a responsibility to control others. So, we objectify people as things we can manipulate in order to find our own peace. We call this influence, and the acts that we thrust on people, impact.
The combination of these illusions makes up the belief that we are the sum of our success, our image, and our influence. If we lose these, we are nothing.
Maybe being nothing is not a bad thing. The realization that none of this is in our control frees us. Once we realize that we are not our bank accounts, our history, or our impact on others, we are free to “fail” at being a person. Not because you are a failure, but because you are eternally successful without these things.
Releasing the Need to Do
We’ve been conditioned to believe that life is a bunch of obstacles that we must force ourselves through sheer will. We equate making things happen with worthiness. Conversely, we equate letting things happen with defeat.
As a result, we feel a crushing sense of personal failure when the relationship fails despite our effort, or the career path hits a dead end. We judge our inability to shape the world as we see fit, and, as a consequence, we feel abandoned by it.
The belief that one must make things happen is a subtle form of arrogance. It assumes that the universe is fundamentally broken and you are the only one providing it with direction. It’s the belief that our finite mind knows better than the Infinite Intelligence that created the stars.
Any form of effort is essentially a resistance to the present moment. When we try to make a result, we are saying that whatever is going on right now is inadequate.
We believe that we are the cause of our own peace. If we don’t make things happen, nothing will. The truth is that peace is already here. We are the ones who get in the way of it.
To understand peace, we must shift our perspective from the doer to the allower. This is not a call to be passive, but to realize that to receive peace, one must remove the barriers to peace. It’s our job to remove the friction and allow peace to flow.
Being exhausted and giving up is not truly giving up. It’s the realization that peace was always here, without you having to do anything.
The truth has never required your protection. We think we are defending our lives, but Life has always sustained us. Love is a fact, not a result.
Life on Autopilot
The identity of action stems from our past and the belief that things would be different if we just did something different. This is also where our rumination on the negative parts of our lives comes from.
We replay scenes in our lives where we couldn’t maintain the marriage, couldn’t stop the addiction, or couldn’t hold the business. Sadly, we carry these memories as proof of our inadequacy.
We judge ourselves for our weaknesses, believing that if we were just more vigilant, we could have averted disaster.
In writing this article, I’ve realized something. I work in a field where things are and can be automated. However, it takes everyone to be bored with the automation for it to work. I’ve realized that most people are against automation because not doing what they once did is a blow to their ego. It’s a loss of identity.
We are unwilling to give away this control. Yet, keeping this control only guarantees failure. We are afraid to give this responsibility to someone else, even though we are not equipped enough to do the job.
So we go through the cycle of praise and disappointment. The praise feels good, but the disappointment is devastating. We believe that when we fail to control our lives, we are broken.
We haven’t realized that the moment we couldn’t control our lives was the very moment grace stepped in. It’s quite awkward that the moment we truly decide to give up is the moment we start to feel the peace we were striving for.
Questions and Responses
It feels that way because the ego equates “control” with “safety.” But notice that the most vital parts of your life—your heartbeat, your breath, the turning of the earth—are already happening without your permission. “Falling apart” is often just the collapse of an exhausted illusion. When the “fake pilot” stops grabbing the controls, you realize the plane was already on a perfect flight path.
Not at all. There is a massive difference between fear-based effort and inspired action. When you move as a “Doer,” you are trying to force a broken universe to work. When you move as an “Allower,” you are cooperating with Life. You still show up for the 2:00 PM meeting, but you no longer carry the impossible burden of guaranteeing its outcome.
Guilt is the ego’s way of maintaining the “Pilot” identity. By feeling guilty, you are secretly telling yourself, “I had the power to change this.” It’s a subtle form of pride dressed in a suit of shame. Realizing you never had that kind of control isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a return to Radical Innocence. You can’t be guilty of failing at a job that was never yours to begin with.
It’s okay to feel a bit “bored” or empty at first. We’ve spent years building a brand around being the “fixer” or the “reliable one.” When you automate your trust in the Divine, the ego loses its job description. But in that emptiness, you find something better than a reputation: you find the Witness. You aren’t the person who succeeds or fails; you are the Love that remains regardless of the result.
Every time we try to manage a partner or a child, we are silently whispering, “I don’t trust the Grace within you.” Control is a resistance to the present moment and a denial of the other person’s intelligence. When you drop the “Manager” mask, you finally allow enough space for real Love to breathe. You move from being their “boss” to being their “Beloved.”
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