Learn What to Let Go Of To Achieve More Happiness

You can do it! Almost time to relax! At work today you took on that co-worker thats always trying to one-up you.  After painstakingly looking over every detail of a presentation from the colors to just the right serif font, you are sure you have held him off for now in the race for the next promotion.

You would have had time to revel in that victory if the idiots on the road home didn’t almost make you miss the daycare pickup time. Luckily being stuck in traffic gave you plenty of time to get amped up over the latest atrocity happening in the political world. You are going to protest this weekend. Hopefully the weather holds out.  

Thats when your mother calls telling you that your sister quit her job and you need to be looking out for her cause she can’t take care of herself and would it kill you to show up to Sunday dinner once in a while?

Crisis Overload Can Make Us Want to Control Everything

There is a lot going on. With so much being thrown at us it can be hard to sort out what we should care about and what we can let go of. In the previous three paragraphs there is a myriad of issues to address. 

Co-workers actions, promotions, presentations, traffic, your child’s well being, politics, the weather, and your extended family are just part of that short story. 

In reality, David Allen who wrote “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity” says there can be anywhere from 150-200 things you are trying to hold onto in your brain at any given time. Some of those things you have control over. Others not so much.  

As things pile up, I tend to try to exercise even more control over them. Rarely is this the best choice. When I feel anxiety getting high and overwhelm setting in, I have to do a bit of an edit on how much attention I am giving certain things and I always return to a couple of different concepts in order to do that.

RELATED ARTICLE: 7 Hard Things I’m Saying NO to Right Now To Avoid Burnout

Sphere of Influence is Not What I Thought it Was

I have to admit when first looking up this concept I remember learning about, I thought that it was titled the “sphere of influence.” Imagine my surprise then when what popped up after a google search was a geopolitical definition. 

According to the AI bot living inside the search engine, a “sphere of influence” generally refers to a region or area where a country or organization exerts significant control or influence, often without formal annexation. This influence can be political, economic, military, or cultural. 

What I Really Was After was Sphere of Control

Although quite interesting and worth a future rabbit hole, what I was actually looking for was the “sphere of control” which refers to the idea that individuals have varying degrees of control over different aspects of their lives. 

Picture if you will, three concentric circles, the innermost being the sphere of control, the middle is the sphere of influence (see I wasn’t completely off base here), and the largest the sphere of concern. This idea was popularized by Stephen Covey in his classic book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. His terms were the more geometrically accurate “circles” of control, influence, and concern as opposed to the decidedly less manageable spheres. 

The whole premise is quite simple and that’s why it sticks. There are a small amount of things that you can actually control. There are many more that you can directly or indirectly influence but you can’t necessarily control them. Then there are the things that you are concerned about but can’t control nor influence in any meaningful way. 

While these are easy enough to sort when going through the exercise, categorizing things properly in real time can be much more difficult. Since we of course want to control things, and there are many more things out of our control and influence than in them, we tend to move things into that inner category that have no business being there.

What Can We Actually Control Anyway?

I think there are a few fundamentals that we can confidently say we can control. These things usually are the foundations of the hierarchy of needs. Things like what we are going to eat today we have a fair amount of control over. What are we going to wear? 

We also have control over quite a lot of our children’s day if we are a parent. Some would argue not as much as we think and to that I say, touché.

While we can’t control many things that happen to us, stoicism contests that we can control our reactions to them. This and being in control over our emotions is possible but harder than we expect. Ask my wife every time the Carolina Hurricanes are eliminated from the NHL playoffs.

Everybody is an Influencer Though Right?

It’s true. It’s a world of influence. I’m sitting here right now trying to influence you to take stock in the things that you can control and influence. In some indirect way, you can convince yourself that you can influence anything and to some degree that is absolutely true. 

This however is where we need to do some probabilistic forecasting and a cost-loss analysis. How much of your time and energy will it cost you to try to influence something and what is the probability of your action having a meaningful impact on the situation.

What is the issue and how much does it directly affect you? If the issue directly affects your daily life and you have a good chance of influencing it, keep it in the sphere of influence. If you are passionate about something but it won’t affect your daily life either way, push it out into the sphere of concern. You still care about it, but its priority can be lower.

Who are you influencing? Your son or daughter or a close family member? Definitely worth the effort. That troll online who lives to get under peoples’ skin? Don’t bother. You have zero chance of changing that person, If they are a person in the first place.

Maybe We Need A Fourth Sphere

From my point of view, nobody in modern day writing has helped to decrease the number of things we should be concerned with more than Mark Manson who wrote the eloquently titled, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living A Good Life.” 

Manson showed us a whole host of things you shouldn’t give a f*ck about from the guy cutting you off on the highway to the Karen losing her mind in line in front of you to the grocery store manager because they are out of organic carrots and her pet rabbit won’t eat the common veg. 

To this I say we need a fourth sphere, the sphere of not giving a f*ck, because we are in control. We are in control of who we spend our time with, and who we shouldn’t give a f*ck about. Spend time with those who you care about and who show it in return. Stop worrying about those who don’t bring you joy or try to bring you down.

Let Go and Enjoy the ride!

Let go of the things that don’t really matter. The dishes can sit in the sink a little longer if it means you get to spend an extra hour doing something with your child. It won’t be long before they are off to college. 

Take that trip now while you can still walk and maybe care a little less about hitting your retirement bank account threshold. After all there is no guarantee you will make it there.

One of my five people that I would love to have dinner with dead or alive is the late chef, travel writer and storyteller Anthony Bourdain. I leave you with his words which sum it up pretty well.

“Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”

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