The saying that you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself means that you have to get out of the way. You must admit you have been trying to make the way, or your way, and in so doing, you get in the way. You interfere. That is your control. You will not let your life out of your sight or out of your hands, and so you restrict it or clamp it and deny it its own lifehood.
Once you throw a ball, you have thrown it, and you cannot help it get into the basket. You have been trying to carry the ball to its destination when you have to let go of it.
Your control does not help. Beyond the viability, or non-viability, of your help is your perceived need to make things happen. As if you do. As if you can!
When you believe you can control things and must or that you have, after a momentary sense of success, you feel uneasy because you do know, after all, the true state of affairs. You know that a thrown ball is thrown and is on its own and you can only watch it carry itself. You cannot make it score. Your so-called responsibility ended once the ball was no longer in your hands. You equate that with helplessness, but the issue is not power but trust.
You are not the leader of the orchestra, but you are a player.
Even if you were an orchestra leader, you are not the one who plays the instruments. You lift your baton, but the baton does not play the notes. The baton lets the notes be played. And the wielder of the baton must allow them to be played. Even the player of the flute must allow the notes to float themselves. Who makes the music?
Replace your need for control with trust. Trust is not in the knowing that the ball will go through the hoop. Trust is in knowing that it is okay if it does, and it's okay if it doesn't.
Games are such a metaphor for life. You think something is really at stake. You think something is right or wrong, good or bad, successful or unsuccessful when all the while you know nothing. And when the ball makes the basket, what have you got? A few cheers. And, for a little while, you believe you did it. What is an event anyway? And what is your true part in it? You catch the ball. You hold it. You dribble with it. You toss it. You catch it again…
Life is a collection of things in the air.
You may feel a responsibility all the while you watch, and in a sense it is all your responsibility, but in another sense you have none. Or We can say that your responsibility was completed before the particular game event began. Things are in motion. You set them in motion, but the motion is not yours.
You are a receiver. Even when you throw the ball, you are the receiver. You are the receiver of impulses. The ball is a symbol. It is thought concretized. It is magic. The whole game is magic. Enjoy it. The outcomes are not so important. Your letting go of them is.
Get out of the way of truth. Do not stand so close to the plate. Do not run so fast. Do not try to be the master of events in life.
Laugh. Laugh at what transpires, for you are more than the game. You are much more than the game. Therefore, from strength, not control, enjoy the playing. The turn of events is not your life. Enjoying is.