The Illusion of Control and the Claiming of Personal Agency
A controlled life is not only exhausting — it’s also deeply unkind to ourselves.
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The Americans Dreaming of Control
There is something uniquely American about wanting to have control over our lives.
We want to believe that we alone can dictate our future. Why do we want this? Because we have been told we can do it since the time we were children.
We are surrounded by ideas of self-control, self-mastery, self-discipline. Inundated by methods to get in the driver’s seat of our lives, take charge, claim ownership, stake ground, gain command — whatever the catchphrase of the day is. Self-help books, corporate seminars, and advice from everything from relationships to diet to finances revolve around how to bring this world to heel before us.
Manifest, we are told. The world is our oyster, we are promised.
There is a common thread that runs through popular American ideas such as do-it-yourself, bootstrap mentality, hustle culture, and rugged individualism. They are all underscored by a belief that we, and we alone, decide our future. Randomness be damned.
The American Dream itself boils down to the promise of control, with a formula we all know well, something like:
Choices + Mindset + Determination = Desired Goal
Whether the stated goal is success, happiness, good relationships, or something else, our culture has conditioned us to believe that anyone can win the obstacle of life if we learn how to (micro) manage each moment of our lives just right — productivity, focus, drive, ambition being the main ingredients.
This is the belief set that underlies the American habit of assuming the wealthiest among us are also the most intelligent or hardest working among us. It is part of the inner workings of the idea of the “self-made man.” On the flip side, then, those who struggle or fail must not be trying hard enough, or haven’t put enough shoulder into the boulder.
We might allow room for a bit of luck here or there, or the “right place, right time” phenomenon, but at the end of the day, most of us covet the life in which we call the shots.
But is this really possible? Desirable? And what if it’s not?
What if this idea of control is all an illusion? What if it has always been an illusion?
“Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place. When you handle the master carpenter’s tools, chances are that you’ll cut your hand.”
— Lao Tzu
Maybe we think that control equals safety. Maybe we want to believe that, in a world falling apart, maintaining some small areas of control is a healthy coping mechanism. Perhaps it is.
But — what if letting go of control could bring about more freedom, more joy, and more peace than a tidy, organized, micro-managed life?
Is it possible that the idea of control is a heavy burden we have been carrying around our whole lives?
The Burden of Control
The illusion of control burdens us with an impossible responsibility.
When we believe we should be able to control everything, then any failure, setback, or unexpected challenge feels like a personal shortcoming. Didn’t get the promotion? Maybe you didn’t hustle hard enough. Struggling in your marriage? Perhaps you just haven’t mastered the right communication techniques. Facing an illness? Surely, if you just optimize your diet, stress levels, and mindset, you can turn it around.
This thinking is not only exhausting — it’s also deeply unkind. It leaves no room for grace, for the randomness of life, for the reality that some things just happen and are not within our power to change. Worse, it isolates us. When we buy into the illusion of control, we internalize struggles that are often collective, systemic, or circumstantial, believing that if we just tried harder, we could have altered the outcome.
What if, instead, we acknowledge that much of what happens in our lives — the good, the bad, and the ugly — has less to do with us personally and more to do with the fact that we are all driving together on this road of life, never knowing which way we may be taken next?
If there’s a road closed sign up ahead, is there anything I could do other than turn around or take the detour? Can I “manifest” a straighter path, pray for it, or work harder for it? No. The road is closed. It has nothing to do with me. Now, I have to take the long way. I won’t get to my destination when I hoped I would. But maybe, just maybe, this detour holds something I wouldn’t have found otherwise.
Or maybe the world doesn’t revolve around us after all.
I know some people preach that in life, there are no accidents. But if that’s true, that’s a lot of pressure, isn’t it? That means we must always be on the lookout, listening for messages, trying not to miss an opportunity, and quick to get down on ourselves if we think we have. Release the burden of control and live a softer life, with more room for grace, humor, “wrong” turns, and random incidents. Now you are no longer trying to bully or manipulate life, but are instead receiving it as it comes.
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”
― Chögyam Trungpa
You’ll Always Have the Memories
If you say goodbye to a life in which your hands must remain tightly on the steering wheel, I don’t think it will be long before you are taking some much needed deep breaths.
You’ll look back and remember how hard you tried. How much effort you put into forcing things to go exactly as planned. How brightly you highlighted determination and ambition as the supreme human traits — until you realized that what you have now is far better: curiosity, humility, gentleness, playfulness.
You’ll laugh at the memory of believing life was a vending machine, where the right combination of thoughts and actions would spit out the perfect reward. You might even shake your head at how you once thought the world would bend to your will, as if the universe was just waiting for you to get your master plan (or your vision board) up and running.
Because, in the end, all that work on self-mastery turned out to be self-indulgent. Self-centered. And, let’s be honest — self-delusional.
Now, you can claim something far more valuable than control. You can claim your agency.
Control Vs. Agency
So, you’re telling me we all just lose control? How is that a good idea? Especially if we stick with the driving on the road analogy, that doesn’t seem very wise at all!
Okay, here is where we get into the nuance.
Living a life where we’ve let go of the illusion of control does not mean living without a care for ourselves or others. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Here are the differences.
Control is a tight fist, gripping onto outcomes, demanding certainty, insisting that life obey our carefully laid plans. But agency? Agency comes from an open heart. It is responsive, adaptable, and engaged with life rather than in opposition to it.
Control seeks guarantees; agency accepts what is. Control is about wrestling life into submission; agency is about showing up fully, making aligned choices, and adjusting course without self-blame.
Agency acknowledges the complexity of the world, the interplay of forces beyond our reach. It asks us to engage fully while also recognizing that outcomes are not solely in our hands.
For the record, agency does not mean passivity. It means knowing where your power actually lies, and that is within, not without.
When we let go of control, we can focus on coming in greater alignment with our values. We can choose our responses to life. And we can pick a path, even knowing it might twist and turn in ways we cannot predict.
Claiming personal agency doesn’t promise a straight path or an easy journey. It offers something better: the freedom to live your life without the illusion that you were ever meant to control it all in the first place.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
— Viktor Frankl
