Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism - The Illusion of Control - Taoism

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Sometimes, the best option is to let go in order to better return to oneself.Free resources, books and more on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wordsoftaoism.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My blog ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://taoismteachings.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music I use, as a playlist: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome to Life Wisdom. Today's reflection is dedicated to the illusion of control, to the need to hold, to the fear of letting things unfold, and to the fatigue of resisting what is already moving. I am Chen Li, author of the blog Word of Taoism on Substack, and you're listening to my podcast. You're in your car, stuck in the middle of a traffic jam.

Around you, hundreds of other vehicles, just as motionless as yours. A head, a line that won't budge. Behind, others waiting. And you, hands grip tight on the wheel, body tense, mind churning. You change lanes, convince the other one will move faster, but it doesn't move any faster. You scan the horizon, searching for the cause of the slowdown, as if knowing would change anything. Gulate how late you'll be. Imagine the consequences. You curse the other drivers, the city, your decision to take this route. Your jaw clenches. Your shoulders tighten.

Your breathing become shallow. And all this time, the traffic jam remains exactly what it is. The cars don't move faster because you're gripping the wheel. Traffic doesn't flow because you change lanes. your lateness doesn't decrease because you're worrying. All this tension, all this agitation, all this control you're trying to exert produces absolutely nothing, except your own exhaustion. This scene is so ordinary it might seem insignificant, and yet it reveals this tendency we all have to try to control what lies beyond our control. and to exhaust ourselves in this impossible attempt.

The traffic jam is a metaphor for life itself, for all those moments when we grip hands on a wheel that commands nothing, when we struggle against what won't budge, when we expend considerable energy for an illusion of mastery. Because we repeat this gesture hundreds of times a day in contexts far removed from highway traffic. We repeat it every time we compulsively refresh our inbox, as if this gesture could make the message we're waiting for arrive sooner.

We repeat it every time we check our phone every five minutes, as if this vigilance could influence what others send us. We repeat it every time we obsessively plan the future, as if our plans could bend reality to our will. We also repeat it, when we mentally replay conversations afterward, searching for what we should have said, correcting lines already spoken,

rewriting a past that can no longer be changed. In those ruminations about what others think of us, these attempts to guess their judgments, anticipate their reactions, control their perception, all these forms of agitation share the same structure. They are attempts to control what doesn't depend on us, and they also share the same result.

They change nothing about the situation, but they exhaust us. Like in the traffic jam, we grip the wheel, we change lanes, we curse. The email arrives when it arrives. Others think what they think. The past remains what it was. Only our fatigue increases. Yet we know somewhere that our adjutanty, agitation is futile.

We know that refreshing our inbox doesn't make the message arrive. We know that ruminating on the past doesn't modify it. We know that worrying about our loved ones doesn't protect them. And yet we continue. Something in us refuses to accept our powerlessness. Something prefers the illusion of control to the recognition of what escapes us. This illusion rests on a fundamental confusion. We confuse tension with action.

We believe that if we're tense, we're doing something. We believe that if we're relaxed, we're being passive, negligent, irresponsible. Tension becomes proof of our commitment, our seriousness, our desire to do well. Letting go seems like surrender, resignation, a form of our commitment. of guilty negligence. We also confuse worry with vigilance. We believe that if we stop worrying, we'll stop being attentive.

We believe our anxiety protects us, keeps us alert, prepares us for the worst. We're afraid that if we release our concern, something terrible will happen. We also confuse control with mastery. We believe that the more we try to control, the more we master. But control and mastery are two very different things.

Control is an attempt to bend reality to our will. Mastery is the capacity to respond skillfully to what presents itself. Control exhausts itself against what resists it. Mastery adapts and finds its way. Control is tension. Mastery is fluidity. These confusions cost us dearly. They consume,

considerable vital energy. Every moment spent gripping the wheel in traffic is a moment of unnecessary tension that the body must then repair. Every hour spent ruminating on a conversation is an hour subtracted from the rest the mind needs. Every day spent worrying about what we cannot change is a day when the joy of living found no place. And this wasted energy isn't just lost. It's often counterproductive. Tension makes us less effective, not more. Worry, Cloud's judgment instead of sharpening it. The obsession with control makes us rigid when we need to be flexible.

We believe our tension helps us when it actually hinders us. We believe our agitation protects us when it exhausts us and makes us more vulnerable. but what truly escapes our control. The list is longer than we'd like to admit. It includes almost everything that matters in a human life. The thoughts of others entirely escape us. We can influence, communicate, explain, persuade, but in the end, everyone thinks what they think.

We cannot enter others' minds to install the ideas we'd like them to have. We cannot control their perception, their judgment, their opinion. This powerlessness is radical, and it extends to all our loved ones, even those we love most, even those we know best. The course of events escapes us just as much. We can plan, prepare, anticipate, but reality always has the final word. The best-conceived projects can collapse in an instant. the most solid predictions can be proven wrong.

The unexpected emerges by definition where we didn't expect it. We navigate an ocean of uncertainty, and our illusion of control is just a fragile raft on the surface of the waves. The weather, illness, and even death. These great forces of nature mock our will. But in truth, we don't even control.

what seems most our own, namely, our own thoughts and our own emotions. Try not to think about something and you'll think about it more. Try not to feel an emotion and it will intensify. Our thoughts come and go according to laws that largely escape us. Our emotions rise in us without our having decided them. We can learn to observe them, welcome them, not identify with them, them, but we cannot command them like we command a machine. This list may seem discouraging. If so much escapes us, what remains? But perhaps this question is poorly framed. Perhaps recognizing what escapes us is not a defeat, but a liberation. Perhaps letting go of the illusion of control opens a space for something truer, more just,

more alive. There's an old story that's been told for centuries. A farmer had a horse that ran away one day into the hills. His neighbors came to comfort him. What bad luck. The farmer simply replied, a few days later, the horse returned, accompanied by several wild horses.

The neighbors exclaimed, what good luck. The farmer replied, Maybe. The farmer's son, trying to break one. of the wild horses fell and broke his leg. The neighbor said, what bad luck. The farmer replied, shortly after the army came through the village to conscript young men for a distant war.

The farmer's son with his broken leg was left behind. The neighbor said, what good luck. And the farmer replied, as always, maybe. This story doesn't say that nothing matters. that everything is equal, that we should prefer nothing. It says something more subtle. We don't know. We don't know if what happens is good or bad,

because we don't see the rest of the story. We see only a fragment of the fabric and presume to judge the whole. We know only an instant of the river and presume to know where it's going. This ignorance isn't a defect of our intelligence. It's the very condition of existence in time. The future isn't yet written. The consequences of each event unfold unpredictably. Branch out, interact with other events in a complexity that exceeds our understanding.

We judge as good what pleases us now and as bad what displeases us. But these judgments are bets on a future we don't know. The farmer understood this. His maybe isn't indifference, it's humility. He recognizes that he doesn't know what the future holds. He refuses the arrogance of believing he knows what should happen. And this humility frees him from the emotional agitation that shakes his neighbors. He's not carried away by euphoria when things seem to go well, nor crush him.

by despair when they seem to go badly. He remains stable, present, available to what comes. This doesn't mean the farmer does nothing. He continues to cultivate his field, care for his animals, tend to his injured son. He acts where he can act. But he doesn't try to control what exceeds him. He doesn't try to force the future to conform to his expectations. He does what needs to be done, and he lets the rest unfold, according to its own logic.

This wisdom echoes that of the Stoic philosophers who distinguished with great clarity what depends on us and what doesn't. What depends on us, they said, are our judgments, our impulses, our desires, our aversions. In a word, everything that is our own work. What doesn't depend on us is the body, reputation, public office, in a word, everything that isn't our own work. This distinction may seem harsh, but it invites us to concentrate our energy where it can be effective and to stop wasting it where it can do nothing. It invites us to distinguish control, this attempt to subjugate what escapes us, and influence this action on what truly depends on us.

Because we do have influence, even if we don't have control. We don't control what happens to us, but we have influence over how we respond to it. We don't control others' thoughts, but we have influence over our own words and our own actions. We don't control the course of events, but we have influence over our attention, our attitude, our presence to what is.

This influence is more modest than the control we'd like to have, as it doesn't give us the power to shape the world according to our desires. But it's real, it's effective, and above all, it's within our reach. Instead of exhausting ourselves against what resists us, we can act where our action matters. Instead of gripping the wheel in the traffic jam, we can work on our way of experiencing the traffic jam. Let's return to that car stuck in traffic. Nothing has changed on the outside.

The cars are still just as numerous, the progress still just as slow, the delay still just as certain. But something can change on the inside. The hands can loosen their grip on the wheel, the shoulders can drop, notch, the breath can deepen, music can be turned on or a podcast or simply silence. The gaze can stop anxiously scanning the horizon and rest gently on what's there. The clouds in the sky, the faces in other cars, the light of this late afternoon. The traffic jam hasn't changed, but our relationship to it has transformed. We're no longer at war with what is.

We're no longer spending our energy on useless agitation. We've stopped gripping a wheel that commands nothing. And in this release, something strange can happen. We become more available, more present, more capable

of responding skillfully if something truly requires our attention. Because, right, action is born from release, not from tension. The relaxed driver sees the road better than the tense driver. The serene decision maker judges better than the anxious one. The present person responds better than the agitated one. What we took for commitment, the tension, the worry, the grip, was actually an obstacle to true commitment. By letting go of the illusion of

control, we don't become passive. We become more effective. This truth is counterintuitive for minds shaped by a culture that values visible effort, palpable tension, agitation as proof of seriousness. We struggle to believe that release can be anything other than abandonment. We struggle to conceive that one can be fully engaged while being deeply relaxed. And yet the great brightest masters in all domains, artists, athletes, sages, testify to this truth. Excellence is born from a form of letting go, from a fluid presence that doesn't tense up over the outcome. Living without the illusion of control doesn't mean giving up action. It means acting differently.

Acting with the fluidity of water rather than the rigidity of stone. Water doesn't seek to control the rocks in its path. It doesn't tense against them, doesn't exhaust itself trying to move them by force of will. It flows around them. It adapts. It finds its way. Perhaps we can learn to live more like this, not by abandoning all action, all intention, all commitment,

but by ceasing to grip what escapes us. by doing what needs to be done with presence and attention, then letting the results be what they will be, by acting on what depends on us and accepting what doesn't. By loosening our hands on this wheel, we've been gripping for so long. This wisdom isn't acquired in a day. The habit of control is deeply rooted in us. It will return again and again in every traffic jam of our life,

in every situation where we'd like things to be other than they are. But each time we recognize it, each time we loosen our hands, something is freed. Energy that was wasted becomes available. Attention that was scattered can settle. Presence that was impossible becomes possible.