The ability to dictate reality.
That’s how I define control.
It’s not a definition you’ll find in any dictionary, and probably not how you define it.
But it’s essential to understanding everything that follows.
Dictate means rearrange or edit according to our preferences. Reality means, well, everything — everything outside us (people, places and things) and inside us (thoughts, feelings, behavior) too.
Defined this broadly, the wish for control stands behind just about everything we do consciously.
Plus most of what we do unconsciously (feel, fantasize, worry, dream) as well.
We seek control in order to get reality to behave as we want it to.
We seek control because we want to make the world adjust itself to us, instead of vice versa.
We all want control in this sense.
Not just want, either.
We crave it.
Control is the mother of all motivations.
Every human ever born has craved it and chased it.
Because it’s a craving that is literally built into us.
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