What You Actually Control (And Why It's Enough).

On control, chronic pain, anticipatory grief, and why most people exhaust themselves fighting battles they've already lost.

(The tension of trying to control what you can’t. A visual metaphor for the exhaustion of fighting unwinnable battles.)

I was standing in a queue the other day, watching a man lose his absolute mind over a delayed coffee order. Three minutes. That’s all it was. But there he stood, vibrating with indignation, staging a one-man performance of “Customer With Justified Rage” for an audience of nobody who gave a damn. The barista didn’t care. The other customers were checking their phones. Even the universe itself had moved on. But this guy? He’d handed his entire emotional state over to a latte that was coming anyway.

We do this constantly. We gift-wrap our peace of mind and hand it to things we cannot control—other people’s timings, the weather, traffic, the barista’s competence—and then wonder why we’re exhausted. It’s like getting angry at clouds for not being the right shape. Pointless, but apparently irresistible.

I used to be that person too. Running on frustration, reacting to everything, convinced I was fighting important battles. Then something shifted. I realised I only truly control two things: my thoughts and my actions. Everything else? Just noise I’d been choosing to amplify.

What Is the Dichotomy of Control?

The dichotomy of control is an ancient Stoic principle: some things are within your control, and some things aren’t. Your peace of mind depends entirely on recognising the difference.

What you control: your thoughts, your actions, your responses.

What you don’t control: other people, external circumstances, outcomes, the past, most of the future.

The revolutionary insight? Trying to control what you can’t control is the primary source of human suffering. We exhaust ourselves fighting battles that were never ours to win. The dichotomy of control isn’t about giving up—it’s about directing your energy where it actually makes a difference.

Is It Logical? Is It Practical?

So I started living by two simple filters: is it logical? Is it practical? If something doesn’t fit into either category, it’s a waste of my time and energy.

I’m not talking about becoming emotionless. Emotions exist. I feel them. But so many emotions we indulge are just ego dressed up as feelings—defensiveness when someone dares suggest we’re not perfect, resentment that the world isn’t arranged for our convenience, manufactured drama because apparently we’re all starring in our own reality show that nobody’s watching. That’s not emotion, that’s ego having a tantrum and demanding someone call a newspaper about it.

Even real emotions—fear, sadness, anger—aren’t meant to control you. They’re information. The key is what you do next: do you react, or do you respond?

What’s Actually Within Your Control

Let’s get brutally practical. What’s logical, what’s practical, what’s actually within my control?

The four basics of human survival: food, shelter, water, safety. Oh, and bills—the modern addition our ancestors never had to contend with. That’s it. That’s the controllable stuff. First priority. Realistically all I should care about.

Everything else? Other people’s shit pouring down on me. And I can choose whether to stand there and get drenched or step aside.

Reaction vs Response: What’s the Difference?

Reaction is automatic, immediate, driven by the feeling itself. When someone cuts you off in traffic and you spend twenty minutes fuming, composing the perfect angry speech you’ll never deliver, inventing elaborate revenge fantasies involving their insurance premiums—that’s reaction. You’ve handed control of your internal state to a complete stranger who’s already three exits down the motorway, eating a sandwich, completely unaware they just ruined your morning. Congratulations, you played yourself.

Response is that breath, that pause, that conscious choice. It acknowledges the emotion but asks: what action serves me now? Most of the time, the answer is: let it go. Response is where the power lives.

Between Stoic philosophy and Buddhist thought, I found my framework. The Stoic clarity about the dichotomy of control—what’s within your sphere of influence and what isn’t. The Buddhist understanding of how ego creates suffering. I took what was logical and practical from both.

How I Manage Chronic Pain Mentally.

I live with pancreatic issues (among other things) —constant discomfort, 24/7. Absolute riot. Like hosting a terrible houseguest who never leaves and complains about everything. And I have a choice in how I relate to it.

I can fight it, resist it, make it my entire personality. Become that person at parties: “Well, actually, my pancreas...” Or I can acknowledge it, take the medication, and work with it rather than staging a futile rebellion against my own organs. Turns out arguing with your pancreas is like arguing with the weather—impressive commitment to a losing battle, but ultimately you’re just shouting at biology.

Fighting pain doesn’t reduce it—it just adds psychological suffering on top of physical discomfort. Research shows acceptance-based approaches reduce overall suffering more effectively than control attempts. Managing chronic pain mentally means accepting what you can’t change while actively managing what you can—medication, rest, pacing, and most importantly, your mental response to the sensation itself.

And if you’re not blaming external things, the ego finds another target: yourself.

Breaking the Self-Blame Cycle.

Somehow this must be your fault. Something you did, didn’t do, should have seen coming, should have prevented if only you’d been smarter, more vigilant, more deserving of a functioning organ system. But self-blame creates stress, which compounds the physical problem, which triggers more self-blame. Round you go on that roundabout, gaining speed, refusing to get off because apparently you’ve decided to become a human carnival ride of misery.

The way out? Distinguish between what’s genuinely your responsibility and what’s simply not yours to own. Some things are your responsibility. Most of what happens to you? You didn’t create it. And blaming yourself for it just adds poison to what’s already there.

Accepting the discomfort—that’s what allows me to have calm conversations, write, think clearly, occasionally laugh at the absurdity. The discomfort is there either way. The choice is whether I add mental torment to it.

What Is Anticipatory Grief?

Anticipatory grief is suffering that occurs before an actual loss—worrying about loved ones dying, imagining future grief, essentially practicing misery in advance like it’s a skill that needs rehearsing. It’s trying to control the uncontrollable timing of death through the sheer force of anxiety.

The logic applies here too. We’re born, we live, we die. Not negotiable, not preventable, and no amount of worrying changes the schedule. Worrying about what happens to loved ones after you’re gone? You’ll be dead. You won’t know. You can’t intervene. And honestly, if you could rise from the grave to micromanage their lives, they’d probably appreciate you staying dead.

And the reverse—worrying about what happens to you when they’re gone. You can’t prevent their death by rehearsing suffering in advance. All you do is sacrifice the present to dread of the future. They’re here now. That’s what you control.

And when they’re actually gone? Stop living in the past with them. Nice memories, sure. But replaying what-ifs and if-onlys isn’t going to make a bit of difference. While you’re suffering over their absence, they’re not suffering at all. They’re dead. You’re the one choosing to stay stuck in a timeline that no longer exists, having imaginary conversations with someone who can’t respond. The past isn’t within your control either. They’re gone. You’re here. That’s the reality.

Emotional Intelligence vs Emotional Incontinence.

Here’s a distinction nobody makes anymore: emotional intelligence versus emotional incontinence.

Emotional intelligence is recognising what you feel, understanding why, and choosing an appropriate response. It’s adulting, basically.

Emotional incontinence is leaking your unprocessed reactions all over everyone else and calling it authenticity. It’s the emotional equivalent of not being housetrained.

We’re drowning in emotional incontinence everywhere. Someone cuts you off—full meltdown involving horn-honking, creative profanity, and possibly a multi-paragraph review of their driving on social media. Coffee’s wrong—tirade directed at a teenager making minimum wage who definitely doesn’t get paid enough for this. Something mildly inconvenient happens—emotional performance art demanding an audience and possibly critical acclaim.

We’ve convinced ourselves that having feelings means we must immediately express them, amplify them, make them everyone else’s problem. That emotional control equals emotional suppression, which apparently equals fascism or something. It doesn’t.

Control means you feel the anger but don’t let it drive the car. Because anger has terrible judgment, no sense of direction, and will absolutely get you pulled over. You acknowledge it, process it, then decide what’s worth doing. Emotional incontinence is reactivity dressed up as honesty. It’s “I’m just being real” as an excuse for being insufferable. And it’s completely unnecessary.

Emotional Learned Helplessness.

We’ve developed emotional learned helplessness—this idea that we must be emotionally invested in everything, that detachment equals not caring, that if we’re not performing anguish about every global crisis we’re morally deficient sociopaths who probably kick puppies.

The truth? Selective attention isn’t cold, it’s sustainable. You can’t carry the weight of everything. Your shoulder’s already dislocated from trying. Choosing what deserves your energy is wisdom, not selfishness. It’s recognising you’re not Atlas, and pretending to be just gets you a hernia.

The world’s problems—war, starvation, collective cruelty—I see them clearly as unnecessary and illogical. Humans have this impressive talent for creating suffering where none needs to exist. But I don’t let frustration disturb my peace because frustration serves no practical purpose when applied to things I cannot control. It’s like being angry at gravity. Valid feeling, zero impact on physics.

It’s like standing in the middle of a football pitch trying to watch the match—you can’t see anything. Most of humanity is having a screaming match in the centre circle while insisting they can see perfectly well, thanks very much. Meanwhile, the actual game is happening elsewhere, and they’re missing it because they’re too busy arguing about whether the grass is the right shade of green. Step to the sidelines and suddenly the patterns become obvious.

If You’re Going To Try This Anyway.

Before reacting, ask: “Is this within my control?” If yes, take action. If no, redirect your energy. This is the dichotomy of control in its simplest, most practical form.

Practice the response gap. Between stimulus and response lies your power. Take three breaths before choosing your response.

Separate pain from suffering. Pain is what happens. Suffering is your relationship to it. You control the suffering even when you can’t control the pain.

Release the outcome. Do your best, then release attachment to results. You control your effort, not the outcome.

The Real Fight.

The real fight isn’t with other people. It’s with your own thought patterns, your impulse to react rather than respond, your ego’s desperate need to assert control over the uncontrollable. Internal, not external.

And sometimes, the best weapon in that fight is the ability to see the absurdity of it all and laugh.

This isn’t a prescription. It’s just what I’ve found works. Maybe it’s worth a breath. Maybe it’s worth considering. Or maybe not. That’s your choice entirely. But if it ain’t your problem, don’t make it such, don’t own it as if it is, because it’s never yours to own.