As soon as we try to control anything, we split our mind and lose our sense of inner comfort. We can change what we bring to the people and circumstances surrounding us, but we can’t dominate them.
Perhaps the only approach that comes remotely close to a rule of life is that when you are relaxed and flexible, you are happy; when you are rigid and controlling, you are unhappy. Therefore, the key is actually to let go of our urge to get people to behave and events to go our way.
No matter how experienced the psychologist, how learned the theologian, how wise the philosopher, or how holy the saint, none of them can control a two-year-old.
— Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go, p. 204