The idea that some things are within our control whereas others will be outside of it goes as far back as the Greek philosophers. Take Epictetus’s words for it: “Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.”

Power and control may be slightly different things. When people talk about control, they most often see themselves also controlling the outcome. Which means that there is probably less within our control than within our power. The ability to know that something is not only within our power but also within our control requires the practice of knowing what is within our power, how it can be controlled, and what of it can be controlled.

Investigating this question, a conclusion is, that there is only one thing that is within our control. It is our mind.

However, even with the mind, there is only one thing that is within our control and that’s our ability to choose how to respond. It’s the moment when we can choose to move away from a reaction and remember the possibility to own the initiative and thus the response.

There is no way for us to control, for example, the information the mind is subject to or how it delivers this information to us. Emotions, thoughts, imagination, or feelings cannot be controlled. They just appear and go. They are the result of the stimulation someone is subject to. It doesn’t make sense to control this data. Nature and evolution provided us with a body to perceive that data. Nature also provided us with the ability to notice that such data can disrupt our sense of stability and security. Which, again, is what it’s for. But the ability to notice how this data disrupts our sense of stability and security is also the door to learning to understand our mind.

By learning to understand our mind, we can learn to notice when we react and what a response could be. By learning to choose a response we deepen our understanding of how our mind works. And by developing the habit of choosing our response we learn to control our mind.

Choosing our response doesn’t control the outcome. But it does give us the power to follow up on our imagination and gives us a sense of stability.