Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/dM2DVnVSlgY/
“Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.” ~Oscar Wilde
My mother is a huge control freak. I am told she got it from my grandmother, who basically ran everyone’s life.
Regardless, growing up, I noticed that she really struggled with relinquishing control of what we were all doing with our lives.
It was partly out of love because she just wanted what was best for us, and partly because she feels a sense of panic when she doesn’t know what’s going to happen if the person chooses to go in a different direction than she envisions as the “right” one.
I inherited my own need to be in control of everything and everyone from her. It took me a long time to learn how to surrender to what was and let go. Not just of the things happening in my own life, but what others close to me were doing.
I know that when I am outside of somebody else’s personal situation I have much more perspective because I’m not emotionally invested in their drama the way they are. At least, I think I’m not.
See, that’s the big fallacy! I have come to realize that I do actually get emotionally invested, and I hold onto an expectation that the person will take my advice and do what I so cl…