Let your hopes go and they'll survive

Sorry just doesn't cut it. This is probably the most painful thing anyone has ever told me. More painful, I would argue, than whatever I did that necessitated an apology in the first place. I hated that saying sorry was the only thing I could do. I hated that sorry was not good enough to change the situation. I wanted ultimate control and yet life and time had the reins on this one.

If there's one thing in life that I fear the most, it's helplessness. When it comes down to the reality that there is nothing I personally can do to improve a particular situation. That an outcome is completely outside of my control. As an extreme example: my grandfather's battle with liver cancer. I still remember the day I was told that things were looking up. That he was going to be okay. I thought maybe if I wished hard enough. Prayed hard enough. When I received a call the very next day informing me that my grandfather had lost the battle, I couldn't help but feel wronged.

At the gym this past Tuesday, a man came up to the treadmill next to me and instinctively pressed "Quick Start." Nothing happened. I knew the treadmill was out of order but chose not to intervene immediately (that's what psychologists do; they just observe). He then noticed that the treadmill was flashing "Key Down." He immediately went into problem-solving mode (Step 1: Is it plugged in?) and turned his attention to a nearby power outlet. The treadmill was plugged in. Beside the outlet was a fallen placard. "Equipment out of order. Sorry for the inconvenience. -XOXO Gym Staff." Minus the XOXO part. Okay. This is when he will give up I thought. Wrong. He proceeded with his diagnostics, but to no avail. He continually pressed his finger to the "Quick Start" button. Nothing. I did a quick survey of the other available treadmills, of which there were plenty. Why can't he just move to the next one? I wondered. At the three-minute mark, the man surrendered and went to go lift weights.

For a person who works at a tech company, he probably took this as a huge sign of failure. After all, he had been incapable of fixing a "simple gadget." All he had wanted to do was run. He hated that the treadmill's functionality was out of his control. And somewhere in this slew of events, in order to reduce dissonance between desire and action, he convinced himself that he hadn't wanted to run anyway. That he wanted to lift weights, and moved along.

An almost similar series of events took place on Thursday, albeit with a different employee (I know, our gym needs to speed up its repair process). This time, he enlisted a couple others to reassure him that the treadmill was indeed out of commission. That he wasn't just "doing something wrong."

The illusion of control, one of many cognitive biases by which we live our lives, explains our tendency to overestimate the control we have over life's events where in reality, we demonstrably have no influence. And if you ask me, a little of this is probably a good thing. It's this exact illusion that will keep us going in the face of adversity. But of course, it can become pretty detrimental pretty fast. Gambling, for example, is driven by the illusion of control.

Recently, a lady was showing me how she used her computer software to accomplish various tasks. She clicked on something and things ran amuck. It definitely was not what was supposed to happen, let alone what was expected to happen. Oh shoot, sorry. I don't know what I did. She said, embarrassed. She cleaned up the mess and tried again. Same story. She apologized again. And again. I felt uncomfortable as she profusely apologized for a software bug over which she clearly had no control.

Because nobody ever tells children that their dreams are unrealistic, we, from a young age, believe we can do anything. That the world is at our fingertips. That we can stand on the moon and touch the stars. When things don't go our way, we are encouraged to try harder and to never give up.

If you ask me, never give up is misguiding advice. Sometimes, we just have to accept that there's nothing more we can do. That our control has its limits. It'll make for a more healthy way of looking at ourselves -- and at the world around us.

I'd say give it your all is a more ideal phrase to live by. Balance being optimistic with being realistic. In any situation, do whatever is in your power to guide the outcome. But don't beat yourself up over anything past that. Realize that the Earth doesn't need us to push it around the sun. And more importantly, realize that we're not expected to do the pushing in the first place.

To end on a lighter note, here's what Groucho Marx has to say on the matter: Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.