The title of this post is ironic. I cringe when I see magazine articles titled "Take Control of Your Life!" The subtitle is usually something like "5 Secrets of Getting What YOU Want." Yet there is a kind of control we can begin to grow into. It has to do with choice--a rich ecology of choice!
For me it starts with coming to understand that all choices have consequences. Mine, yours, and everybody else's. Including non-human beings.
When I was 16 I chose to do that thing that teenagers often choose to do: friends each telling their parents they're spending the night with each other and then spending the night out 'raising hell.'
It was fun for awhile. We'd had our obligatory couple of six packs, we were all buzzed, and at about 11:00 we all needed to pee--which we 'chose' to do in a mall parking lot. A policeman saw us. One of us yelled, "It's the cops--quick, jump in the car!" Then the driver chose to floor the accelerator and peel out the side of the parking lot.
No surprise--the policeman chose to give chase and floored his accelerator, flashed his blue lights, and took off after us. The three of us not driving told the driver to give up, to pull over. That we were 'busted.' The driver said, "Don't worry, I've outrun many a cop before!" We said, "Don't be a damn fool--pull over!!!"
He chose not to.
20 seconds later, he lost control of the car, bounced off a tree, and slammed into a South Carolina red dirt embankment. The guy riding shotgun tore up his shoulder and broke 4 front teeth on the dashboard. The rest of us just got bounced and bruised. All of us got taken into custody.
Choice: We can choose wisely, or stupidly, or choose not to choose and just go along for the ride.
However we choose, we will still travel into the future, the immediate or distant future, and experience some form of consequence from our choices or the choices of others.
We'll also experience the 'random' consequences of weather and earthquake, solar flares and asteroids, etc., etc. We all will always be experiencing, in one way and another, the consequences of being alive in a vast and measureless creation.
This is why I cringe at "Take Control" articles. Nevertheless...
Participating consciously in the collective karma of Life is the wisest thing any of us can do. And (big surprise) mindfulness is a huge help.
One of the richest lessons in the Jewish scriptures is this: "Wisdom calls aloud at the crossroads." How many times will we come to a fork in the road today?
These places where paths diverge are more numerous than we know. We miss most of them. And even the ones we notice, we often 'choose' by default--taking the fork we always take.
Learning to notice forks in the road is a wonderful practice. Learning to pause at forks in the road is a more wonderful practice. Remembering that Wisdom calls aloud at forks in the road is the wonderfulest practice of all.
Stopping, and doing our best to open our minds and hearts to what Wisdom is saying--now--this may be "The Secret of Life!" Surely it's one strand in the thread of Life's deepest grace.
Briefly, when we practice meditation and contemplative prayer regularly, we begin to see the difference between our own habitual patterns of thinking or feeling and Wisdom's quieter, deeper Presence and Voice. We not only get in the habit of pausing and listening at forks in the road, we get in the habit of trusting that Wisdom will regularly give us those countless positive packets of wise and kind discerning that guide our choosing--and leaven the world.
