Control or lack thereof

It’s amazing how much of my emotional sanity rests on my interactions with others. How much I allow the expected responses of those around me to dictate what I do or how I act. Will they be angry, unhappy, hurt, pleased, unimpressed, proud, skeptical. Will they like me?

And by giving this power to these other people and their unknown reactions I give the control over to some, to quote Shakespeare, “as thin a substance as the air, and more inconstant than the wind”. That is how Shakespeare described a dream, and that is what I use to govern my balance and my world…my expectation of others.

Perhaps I need to rely on others less and myself more. I need not look to others for what I should do or how I should act and instead look inside myself for who I am, for my own truth, and trust what I find there.