Control or Influence

I was thinking this morning about the difference between control and influence. I know control has gotten a bad rap, but ponder with me for a moment. Let's use a metaphor to understand this better. Consider the act of eating: we all do it, most folks struggle with it to some degree. We take in calories, we metabolize them, we store them as fat to be used at a later date. When it comes time to use the fat, do we have control or influence? Which would you prefer?

Here is the difference, and one worth remembering. When we want the fat to come off, we really don't have control: all we can do is influence fat loss. We can exercise, we can change eating habits, but none of that gives us any control over our fat loss. For example, I've stripped my diet in a number of ways: more veggies, lots of tuna, low sugar intake. STILL...I've got this tire around my midsection. Do you know what I mean? If I could CONTROL my weight loss, I'd stick my fat on the bottoms of my feet or evenly distributed around my upper legs and calves, but I cannot control my weight loss, I can only influence it.

I CAN control my weight gain though. I can control how much weight I add to my body by controlling my eating, the types of food I eat, when I eat it. I CAN control that part.

So which is most valuable? Influence or control? When one considers that he or she can only influence the outcomes BUT that one can control the inputs, there is an obvious end to strive for. Think about it. Your investment in your day, your relationships, your experience with Jesus is within your control; your reaction to your day, your relationships and Jesus experience with you is only a mixture you can influence.

Paul the Apostle reminds us of this in Galatians 5:22-24 when he speaks about self-control. Maybe that is why we are told to be slow to speak, slow to anger and quick to hear. Maybe its because we can control the slow parts.

As for me, I'll choose control, and I'll take a healthy dose of it!

Do you know someone that could benefit from this posting? Why not send it to them? Bryan Hurlbut is the author of Making It Count: Putting meaning back in business and relationships. This and other topics can be found in the book Making It Count: Putting meaning back in business and relationships.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Are Worth More Than That!

Image
A young girl is told by her dad that she looks fat in her clothing: her dad, functioning out of his inability to communicate. A young boy is told by his teacher that he’s not applying himself: the teacher speaking out of her inability to understand how the boy learns and frustrated that he’s not with the rest of the class. Think back. You had one or more experiences like this; likely they were defining experiences and may even hurt now as you remember. These memories are damnable, destructive and debilitating; and, today I want you to see them for what they are. If I were horrible at money management, would you form your investments on my advice? If my marriage were a wreck, would you formulate your marriage on my opinions? Why, then, would you allow yourself to be defined by comments others have spoken out of their inabilities? The phrase “you’re stupid” was likely told you by someone who was competitive and needed to feel better about his or her self. The phrase “you damn
Read more

Are You Sitting on your Wag

Image
I have a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier named Peanut Butter: we call her Peefee for short. Over the last nine years, she’s become more human than dog. We talk to her and believe she understands our language, we assume she can speak to us, we even convince ourselves that “she just wants to be with us” when we’re sitting around, despite the steak on our plates. After all, Peefee would never be so shallow as to spend time around us because of what we can give her—she’s way too sensitive for that. She’s often the first one to greet me when I walk in the door; always brimming with exuberance and excitement. Irrespective of any doubts I may have about her actions or emotions any other time, I know for a fact she is excited to see me at the door. I think the fact she can express honest emotion at one point only makes the times she reacts out of selfishness that much more difficult to discern. After all, if she can greet me with happiness and excitement at the door, couldn’t that mean s
Read more

Performing or Being?

Image
You walk into a gathering of strangers and you are outside the comfort of your own skin: naked and emotionally exposed. You stand there thinking, “I need to talk to someone…just standing here is embarrassing.” Or maybe, “Dear heavens above…please, everyone just ignore me” and then you randomly and repetitively swipe your phone to pose as occupied. In either case, you know what happens next because it always happens—some insensitive bloke invades you. On a lucky day, it’s your barber or cosmetician—they’re the best because they already know all your silent soul-borne flaws; but, that’s not today. Today, it’s the extravert across the hall who is out to prove himself. He steps into your space, leans in for the kill and asks the question you’ve successfully avoided to this point. Your mind locks up, then spins; your adrenaline rushes; you look  for the closest escape route, but the self-consumed beast is standing between you and it—there is no way out.   Click here to subscrib
Read more