What Control Freaks don't want to Control

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This cartoon cracks me up. Not that I can relate. Just don't ask my wife. ツ

I think that many control freaks like me often do not understand that one of the few things that we can really control is ourselves. A few years ago I wrote that about self control.. here is a clip from that post:

"Self Control is not mind control ... actually it is the opposite of mind control. Self Control is the exercise of the inner man over the outer man."

I find it interesting that so many of the things we control freaks want to control cannot be. And at the same time we do not want to control the very thing we should. Here are a few thoughts about the power of self control.



He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king. - John Milton

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. -Lao Tzu

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city. -Proverbs 16:32

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself. -Pietro Aretino

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. -Brian Tracy

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. -Seneca

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. -Tennyson

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- first published February 6, 2010