We tend to rationalise why things happen the way they happen. This makes it easier for us to accept adversity and less fortunate events. If we get a flat tyre on the way to an important job interview, we may tell ourselves that we may have avoided a bigger accident.
It is comforting to think that life doesn’t happen in chaotic bursts of randomness, but is instead governed by an intelligent organising force. And it’s reassuring to imagine that misfortune serves a higher purpose by either bringing something better or protecting us from something worse.
This also makes us feel more comfortable about the limited control we have over the events of our lives. But the real impact of reconciling our lack of control lies in realising that the only thing we do have some control over is our mind.
This opens a third possibility that the meaning behind life events is shaped neither by a logical nor by illogical organising principle, but by our mind. It is up to you to interpret what happens and create your own meaning out of it.
The limited control we have extends to some areas of our minds. You don’t know what you’re going to think until you think it. If you try not to think of something, you’re most likely to continue thinking of it. For the most part, we can’t control what and how thoughts arise—not consciously anyways. But what we can control is what we do with them once they appear. We can recognise that they ebb and flow, that their intensity varies, and that they’re always changing. And we can decide what significance we assign to them, how we interpret them, and how we react to them.