Let Go of Control

“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”
– Robert Heinlein


Exploring is hard work. Sometimes, it can put you in a funk.

For instance, I lost all of my physical energy yesterday afternoon. I mean all. Pretending it was a cold, I hied myself to bed and slept 12 hours of bad-dream-induced sleep. Woke up wondering why. Why was I doing all this change on purpose and to myself? Where was I going? What was I doing? What was the point?

What do I want now?

Peace. An easier life. Less mental struggle. More creativity.

I started with all of my own “saws” to keep me going: The path is in the doing. The path is in the experience, in the intent of the action. The path is in how you seek, not what you seek.

The path is in love of self – compassion for self.

So I gave myself a little compassion.

And I wondered: When you give yourself compassion, who is it that gives? Who is it that receives? Isn’t it all the same old you?

Here’s what I saw: The giver is the One, the greater self within yourself. The receiver is the Other. That's you, too.

The path, I saw, is with the giver. The path is the creative force. The path is not the result: the clean house, the new career, the healthy family.

The path is the One who seeks to give peace to the Other.

Here’s the challenge in our (Western) world: we are taught to identify with the Other in ourselves. The accomplishment (grades, job, house). The power (parent, owner, manager). The rewards (prizes, acknowledgment, love).

When you are Re-versioning, the path of exploring is with the source of all that. The One within you who, today, now, says Yes. The inside-of-you One who has compassion for your Other, for your foibles, fears, losses, all of the (negative) Other who thinks it is in control.

But what if our Others are not in control? We have to be. Otherwise, the world will crush us like bugs, no?

No.


I’ve ridden horses for over 40 years. That is, a 70-150 pound Lesser Being perches on top of a 900-1,200 pound Big Being and says, Let’s go over there.

And the Big Being usually does just that.

“What’s it like to control a horse?” ask my non-equestrian friends.

I reply: You are never in control. The horse is always in control. The horse is, physically, ten times your size and strength and could kill you with one well-placed hoof so fast you wouldn’t have the wherewithal to say Hey.

Control is not the issue. If you’re thinking in terms of control, you’ve already lost.

Here’s the truth with Big Beings like horses: You are never in control of the horse. You are either in agreement with the horse, or in disagreement.

If you agree, the horse carries you where you want the two of you to go and how you want the two of you to go down the path you think you want to go.

If you’re in disagreement, the horse makes all of those decisions. You, the lesser of two beings, have two choices:

Talk to the horse about doing something else. Or just agree with the horse already and go along for the ride.


The first time a horse ran away with me I was 11 years old. He was heading home, fast, through a grove of trees, assisted by my violent screams and my pulling on the reins with all of my 11-year-old strength, which he thought was just a dandy way of saying Go Boy!

He was way in control – as usual. And we were way in disagreement because a paved road was coming up too fast and all I could envision was him hitting the pavement at 30 MPH and his shod hooves sliding out from under him and him falling on my lesser, small, screaming, panicked self.

I realized there was nothing I could do. He was in control. My panic died. I took stock of the situation at 30 MPH.

I was on the horse. He was running, yes. But he wasn’t going to fall. He would stop, eventually. He wasn’t stupid: he knew the road was there. He had been on this trail with me a hundred times. He would no more slide out on that road than he would run off of a cliff.

So I hung on and went with the ride and began to talk to him quietly, with my voice and my weight and my legs, and pretty soon he slowed to a cantering 20 MPH, and then a 12-MPH trot, then a walk. And we walked quietly home on the paved road.

We were back in agreement. Although I’m still not sure exactly whose idea it was.

Here’s the thing, though: when I realized the horse was in control and I let go of my being in control and the very idea of control, I got home really fast. The horse took care of me.


When you’re exploring and Re-versioning, think of the path as the horse. Let the path be in control. Try to be in agreement with the path, but if you don’t understand where the path is leading, where the horse is going, don’t panic and saw on the reins. That just gives more control to the horse.

Just agree with the path. See where it goes. Hang on for the ride. Wherever you’re going, you’ll get there a lot faster than if you try to get back in control. Which you never were. And never will be. And it’s all right. That is the thrill of exploring. That’s the thrill of being alive.