The Control Trap - Essay No. 4
The belief that we are in control is one of the greatest illusions a human being can fall for. The more I have lived, observed, and tried to understand life, the clearer it has become to me just how strong that illusion is. There is a well-known saying, often attributed to Einstein, that the more you know, the more you realize how little you actually know. I do not know the exact wording, but I recognize myself completely in its meaning. The periods in my life when I have tried to control outcomes, steer situations, and hold everything together through sheer willpower have also been the most stressful ones. There is a heavy pressure in trying to control something that, at its core, cannot be controlled. That is where the crack appears. It is not just difficult. It is impossible. Control is not real. It is a construct we use to keep fear at bay.
People who are driven strongly by control often direct it toward concrete areas of life such as food, the body, performance, money, relationships, and work. In practice, this means trying to grasp small fragments of a reality that, as a whole, is far too complex to be governed. We focus on narrow lanes and attempt to control just those. Paradoxically, this often creates a sense of calm. Not because control actually works, but because it offers a temporary feeling of order. It is worth pausing to ask why something so limited can feel so reassuring. How can controlling a small part of life create safety and the illusion of control when the rest of life remains entirely out of control? Because no one can control everything.
What makes control especially deceptive is that we often believe it will make us free. We think that by controlling enough variables, eliminating uncertainty, and managing outcomes, we will finally be able to relax. That freedom will come once everything is in place. But the opposite happens. The more we control, the narrower life becomes. Freedom does not expand through control. It contracts. What we believe will liberate us slowly suffocates the very thing we are trying to protect. Control promises freedom, but it quietly takes it away.
In a universe where most things unfold through an intelligence we cannot fully explain, control becomes almost a human reflex. We cannot truly understand how migratory birds always find their way, even though we measure, analyze, and map. We can describe parts of the mechanisms, but the whole escapes us. Plants adapt and survive without thinking, without controlling anything. They move through something larger, something beyond human planning. The seasons come and go without our involvement. The sun rises every morning and we take it for granted without needing to manage it. Nature handles everything perfectly without a brain that plans and calculates. So why do we not trust life in the same way? Why do we not trust that we, too, carry an inner intelligence that does not need to be controlled?
Instead, we interfere with what is natural. We restructure, override, and force ourselves away from what is organic because we no longer allow intuition to lead. We want to regulate our hormones chemically. We prefer medication over listening to the body. We push our will through instead of attuning ourselves. Rather than allowing stillness and emptiness to bring the solution, we force it. We are impatient. We want to know. We want to control. We override our own inner compass, and eventually we can no longer recognize it.
Humans have developed a brain with the capacity to think, plan, and understand, which is a remarkable gift. It can also become our downfall if we let it dominate. This is where the ego takes shape, along with identity and the idea of who we are and what we believe we can grasp. The problem is not the ego itself, but the belief that this mental tool is capable of understanding everything. We are not designed to comprehend the entirety of existence. No human is. We do not have the capacity to understand everything with our minds, and that is something we must accept. The more someone needs to convince others of what they know, and the more they need to shine through their knowledge, the further they drift from deeper intelligence. At that point, they are captured by the ego.
Some people speak of another kind of knowing. A deep, direct knowing, or wisdom, that requires no explanation and cannot be squeezed into evidence, models, or language. It is a knowing that simply is. You just know how things are connected. It is as if you download a QR code and suddenly carry an understanding of how things work, without language, calculation, or prior experience. It arises through deep introspection, not through learning more. That is why it is often said that the way out is the way in. The deeper you look inward and peel away layers of illusion, the more dimensions you are able to perceive outwardly.
To those who demand evidence, this may sound vague or ungrounded. But the demand for evidence is itself a form of control. The moment we require proof, we limit understanding to what can be measured right now. Evidence is always time-bound. It holds under certain conditions and at a specific moment. What is often forgotten is that nothing is static. Everything changes. The truth we lean on is already dissolving at the very moment we articulate it.
I exist in an environment where evidence-based practice is an absolute requirement. There is value in routines and in using the knowledge we have. The problem arises when evidence is treated as a final truth, as if reality were fixed. It is not. Everything moves, shifts, and transforms from one second to the next.
This becomes especially clear in those who try to control. They attempt to hold on to something that is meant to remain in motion. The tighter the grip on a truth, a measurement, or a desired outcome, the more one works against nature’s own logic. Nature is not designed to be held still. It is meant to flow freely. At the same time, the ego often reacts with panic when the next step is unknown. For many people, uncertainty is deeply uncomfortable and close to panic. Beneath the need for control, there is almost always fear. The greater the need for control, the greater the fear, even if it is rarely acknowledged.
Those who feel a basic sense of trust do not need to control in the same way. The opposite of control is trust. Trust in oneself, in processes, and in the unfolding order of things. When trust is present, the need to interfere, manage, and force outcomes diminishes. It opens space for intelligences beyond our own thinking capacity, which is limited.
When I speak about control, I do not mean mastery. I am not talking about skill, discipline, or becoming highly proficient at something. It is important to distinguish between the two. Anyone who reaches the highest level in a field knows that it does not happen through control, but through the release of it. Look at a skilled athlete, a climber, a musician, someone who cooks, creates, builds, or plays golf. The final part of the act cannot be forced. There is no tension there. No grasping. It flows. Complete presence. What makes it possible is not control, but its absence. Mastery appears when thinking steps aside and something larger is allowed to take over.
At one point, I realized how absurd it was to believe that I could control and understand everything. To try to explain life through words and methods that are themselves limited. When I let go of that effort, something else emerged. The higher the level of consciousness, the less need there is for explanatory models. What remains is a knowing that cannot be articulated. Words fall away, and experience begins.
When the mind quiets, when the constant noise of analysis and planning subsides, space opens up. Thoughts want to control. Stillness opens. That is where understanding arises from within. This is where the difference between knowledge and wisdom becomes clear. Knowledge can be learned, and it has value. But wisdom is something else entirely. There are people who are extremely well-read yet lack deeper insight. What is genuinely new does not emerge from old information, but from emptiness, from what has not yet taken form.
It is precisely this emptiness that many people fear. Identity is often tied to knowledge, titles, roles, and achievements. When those fall away, emptiness appears, and often a crisis. Yet this is also where the greatest potential lies. It takes courage to let go of control and discover how life functions without it. But the reward for those who dare is immeasurable.
When I let go myself, I notice how things begin to resolve on their own, often in ways far more refined than anything I could have planned. The moment I decide exactly how something must turn out, I close the door to all other possibilities. When I instead acknowledge my limitations and leave space, something else happens. That is where possibility lives.
So who am I to believe there is only one way, when there are infinitely many?
When control loosens its grip, a creativity emerges that lies far beyond our own imagination. Solutions we believed to be impossible appear as if from nowhere. That is why the control trap is worth pointing out. For those who dare to let go, a life awaits that is freer, larger, and sometimes truly magical. Open your hand and release your grip. Trust life. Trust yourself. Exhale and enjoy the journey where you no longer have to control everything, because a greater intelligence is already doing that work for you. Drop your shoulders. Breathe out. You are in safe hands.