Control is an illusion.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control alcoholism.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control anyone’s compulsive behaviors — overeating, sexual, gambling — or any of their behaviors.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind, or choices.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control the outcome of events.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control life.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Some of us can barely control ourselves.<\/p>\n
People ultimately do what they want to do.\u00c2\u00a0 They feel how they want to feel (or how they are feeling); they think what they want to think; they do the things they believe they need to do; and they will change only when they are ready to change.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong and we’re right.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter if they’re hurting themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter that we could help them if they’d only listen to, and cooperate with, us.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n
The problem was, I didn’t know that then.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought controlling and taking care of other people was my duty, my God-given job.\u00c2\u00a0 My motto from then on became “Do for others what they refuse to , but should, be doing for themselves.”\u00c2\u00a0 If other people don’t want to be responsible I’ll pick up that slack.<\/p>\n
— Melody Beattie, Playing It By Heart, <\/em>p. 148<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Control is an illusion.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control alcoholism.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control anyone’s compulsive behaviors — overeating, sexual, gambling — or any of their behaviors.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind, or choices.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control the outcome of events.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot control life.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Some of us can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letting-go","category-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}