{"id":5671,"date":"2018-07-21T15:09:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-21T19:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=5671"},"modified":"2018-07-24T15:11:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T19:11:06","slug":"365174-letting-go-of-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365174-letting-go-of-control\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#174: Letting Go of Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel too busy. That seems to be my mantra lately. Maybe it\u2019s yours too. I thought my Taming Time<\/a><\/strong><\/span> blog post would help me declutter my calendar and life. It did help, but I want more. I\u2019m finding that I\u2019m being led into a deeper dimension of time. Lately I\u2019ve realized that some of my stress comes from feeling that I have to make sure everything I do succeeds. Part of this comes from my sense of responsibility and that is good. But is it possible to be over-responsible?
\nYes.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had leadership roles in 2 national meetings this summer and a major role in an international one coming up this month. I find myself trying to help others with their tasks and fix a lot of problems. This is also good \u2013 maybe. The question that occurs to me, however, is when should I try to \u201chelp\u201d others and when am I doing too much because I think I have the best way or I want it to be my<\/em><\/strong> way.<\/p>\n

Of course this dynamic of controlling and being over-responsible not only applies to meetings but also to marriage, parenting, jobs, and friendships. Sometimes we (I) have to let go of thinking I can control the outcome of a job or relationship and focus on doing what I can, taking a break, and being present to the person next to me \u2013 in the house, car, store, or at a meeting. It reminds me of my parenting maxim<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, “We are responsible for the process we use in raising our children, not the outcome.”<\/p>\n

I may make a mistake, forget a task, or be less than perfect. The project I’m working on may not meet my expectations. That\u2019s OK. Life on earth will survive \u2013 or maybe it won\u2019t. (I do worry about and work for environmental sustainability.) But how am I lightening the load of my neighbor by an attentive, non-judgmental ear. Sometimes that\u2019s more important than saving the world.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you deal with letting go of control? Or maybe you have the opposite inclination \u2013 to let other people do the work and worry. How do we balance these two extremes?<\/p>\n

PS: And, oh yes, please excuse the fact that this blog post is a week late. I’m sure you noticed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel too busy. That seems to be my mantra lately. Maybe it\u2019s yours too. I thought my Taming Time blog post would help me declutter my calendar and life. It did help, but I want more. I\u2019m finding that I\u2019m being led into a deeper dimension of time. Lately I\u2019ve realized that some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[29,17,49],"class_list":["post-5671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-days-365","tag-intangibles","tag-musings","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5671"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5683,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions\/5683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}