Loss of control. Letting go of control.

The past couple of days, if not all of the past 21 months I’ve been living in Nepal, has taught me a lot about control.  In American society, having control over one’s situation, circumstances, means of living, money, career, family, etc. is something valued and desired.  Western culture I believe idealizes a sense of control over one’s life—the security in the knowledge that you know what will happen tomorrow and what consequences or rewards are paired with certain actions.

Living in Nepal and working for the Peace Corps has shown me how little control one really possesses over one’s own life.  The struggles that come with uncertainty vary from trivial to significant.  Will I have something to eat tomorrow? Will I be hungry tomorrow or overfed? Will I be able to complete my work tomorrow or will the weather disrupt my plans? Will I be stressed? Bored? Happy? Content? Lazy? Overworked? Lonely? Depressed? Busy?

I never realized to what extent I value ownership and control over what happens in my life until I began my life here.  And although I still enjoy the moments when things work out “according to plan”, I’m beginning to learn how to accept, even embrace, the fact of life that no matter how far in advance I prepare and how well I plan out my life, my life is not my own.  I am not the sole writer of my life.  I will not be able to predict where I die, how I die, whom I marry, if I get married, where I will live, what I will do as a career, what I’ll eat tomorrow. 

So in a sense, it’s not as much as a loss of control, because I never really owned it in the first place, but letting go of control.