Ask Mikey: Don't waste time on things you can't control

Ahwatukee Foothills Newspaper
July 7, 2010 

Have you ever spent so much time worrying about something that in the end was something you realized you never really had any control over to begin with? To where you did everything in your power to make the situation different? Sacrificed your time? Stayed up late thinking about how to solve the situation? Lost sleep over stressing about it? Nowadays, I am pretty sure we can all say that we have done that a few more times than just once.

It’s funny how it takes us making a lot of mistakes in order to learn about what to do in life and even what not to do. We think that we can just take a situation and put our own personal spin on it to either change the way it is going or the outcome it was headed toward and make our own outcome that we feel is best. On the contrary, we never had control over it to begin with, so I guess the joke is really on us in the end.

It’s like when you get your car washed and waxed to give you some extra luck for that fancy job interview and then you watch the rain come pouring down as you’re on your way to your interview. You get frustrated because now you feel like you’re not going to do well at the interview when in all actuality did you really ever have any control over the rain that came pouring down? Absolutely not. However, you still let it affect your attitude. So now if you don’t get the job you’re going to blame it on Mother Nature when the reason why you didn’t get the job is because of how you handled your reaction to the situation. You can’t control the rain when it comes pouring down but you can control the way you react to the rain.

It is going to rain a lot more in your life than you would like it to as you travel on in your path. Instead of worrying about whether or not it’s going to rain or pour, you can get a lot further and accomplish more if you just worry over things you do have control over. By worrying about the rain (something you have no control over) you’re just going to cause an even bigger storm to hit.

Life is not always going to be about sunshine and cascading rays through the beautiful clouds, so once you learn to accept that, even though you may not like the rain, at least now you can be better prepared for when it does come unexpectedly — like the unexpected bill, the pay cut, or the flat tire you will most likely get in the future. Who knows maybe you will be so prepared and only worry about the things you do have control over, to where you won’t even notice when it is pouring rain outside anymore.