Okay. It’s 3:40 in the afternoon, and I’m blogging now because I’m going to a party tonight with my friends Aaron and Kate. Additionally, I’ve had a sinus infection for the last week and don’t imagine that staying up late to write (again) will help it go away. Currently I’m wishing it WOULD go away, and it occurs to me that I’ve spent a good deal of my life wishing things were different than they are–an illness, a feeling, a relationship, my bank account. So now I’m trying to let life exist, to actually relax into instead of push against THIS moment. This exhausted, snot-filled, weak, achy moment. Which feels like an eternity to me (WHEN will it end?!) but is simply another moment to eternity.

A necessary moment, I trust, in the grand scheme of things.

Earlier today I got a message from Kate about the party tonight. “Be at our house at 5:30 because we’re going to dinner first.” Then she added a laughing emoji and said, “I made your evening plans for you.” And whereas I’m usually a control freak about being told what to do, in this case–for a lot of reasons–I didn’t care. Indeed, I was delighted. “It’s okay,” I replied, “I’m looking forward to getting out of the house.” Anyway, this whole exchange has got me thinking about control, the way we sometimes pitch a shit-fit when someone tells us what to do and sometimes we don’t.

And we’re nowhere near logical about it.

A while back I had an experience in which I wanted someone’s approval and didn’t get it–and that bothered me. Alas, had it been any other person or even a different day of the week, I probably wouldn’t have cared. After some time had passed, I didn’t care with this person. This is what I mean about control, how we have to have things a certain way–our way–in order to be happy or satisfied. I MUST have their approval, and so on. If it’s someone else’s idea or opinion that happens to disagree with yours? Well, then it must be wrong. THEY must be wrong. Because God forbid someone other than you–someone other than me–should be right.

Along these lines, Byron Kate says that if you want to give someone a gift, let them be right. “People LOVE to be right,” she says. So like, let them have the last word. This, of course, is both a difficult and miserable thing to do. But more and more I’m seeing the wisdom in not putting up a fuss about insignificant things (in forgiving), in letting people be who they are (whether they approve of me or not), and in not trying to change someone else’s world (the world where, according to them, I very well may be wrong). Recently I watched two people arguing online about a dance matter. Now, they were using well-constructed sentences and gentlemanly language, but–let’s be clear–they were attacking each other. At the very least, they were picking a fight. (Incidentally, the dance didn’t care.) Have I done this sort of thing before? Sure. But the older I get, the more I hope I do less of it.

Why, Marcus?

Because it’s not my job to control how anyone else dances, behaves, or thinks. This includes friends, family, lovers, and perfect strangers. Granted, I could try to change someone else (and believe me I’ve tried), but talk about exhausting. So more and more I’m learning to let others think and do as they will. My therapist would say, “Like you, THEY’RE AUTONOMOUS.” Likewise, I’m learning to let God, to let life, do as it wills. This means doing my best to heal and succeed, whatever that means, but letting go of the results. It means relaxing into THIS moment whatever it looks like. It means, no matter what’s happened the day before, saying, “Okay, sweetheart, here we are–right here, right now. Let’s start over.”