Beloveds, it is not always easy to know when your need to control is from responsibility or from ego or a combination. You would wish it were easier to know when it is for you to mind your own business or to speak up. This is a great conundrum in life. You don’t want to be passive, and you don’t want to be interfering. You want to do the right thing and simply do not always know what that is.
You may admire My ability to give free will, or you may think I’m too laissez-faire, is that not so? You do understand, however, that, although you may have mixed feelings about free will, I am clear.
Your situation is that you don’t want to stifle your feelings, and you don’t want your ego to take center-stage. I have no ego. I also have no need to control. My power comes from stillness.
It is different for you, for you think life has to be solved. And, indeed, you do have to resolve things within yourself. And, so, you may ask: “When do I speak up, and when do I keep still?”
Sometimes it seems to you that you always have it backwards. You speak up when later you wish you had kept still. You keep still, and later you think you ought to have spoken up.
You wonder if your need to control is always ego, or only sometimes? Yet you know the difference between how you feel, for instance, when you guide your child in crossing streets -- no ego there – to how you feel when you are in a huff because your child has not obeyed you.
Whenever you think: ‘How dare they?” -- it’s likely that ego is at play. It’s likely that when you think: “Am I a fool?” -- then ego is at play. Can you not speak up without ill will?
You know that burying your feelings doesn’t work very well. Your irritation simmers, and then boils. So, then, beloveds, how do you change the way you feel? You do not like that anguish stirring in your heart. You do not like it. You want it to go away, and you don’t know which way to turn.
Let’s step back a little. You do not have to take everything so seriously. Whatever is on your mind is not the end of the world. It doesn’t really matter all that much what you do! You are not the solver of the universe! You are its light, but not its cure. Let go of situations as much as you can. Observe them. Laugh a little. Laugh at yourself, all red in the face about something. You tend to think you must fight or collapse. The first thing to do is to not make such a big deal about whatever it is that you are making a big deal about.
It is like this for you: It is as if you have taken a train. You fear you are going to miss your stop or that you have already. You clutch your heart. Beloveds, have you forgotten there is another stop and another where you may get off? Or that you may get back on again?
Must you be upset? Can you not speak up without upset, or can you not keep silent without upset? Must you make a fuss either way? The question is not so much whether you speak up or keep silent. The question is to resolve issues within yourself until a situation is not an issue.
An issue is like a thorn in your side. Take it out and see it for what it is.
Life is not your will against another’s will.
Let life be. As much as you can, let life be.