Can we change things that are not within our control?

Despair. This is one of the most common responses to situations that cause unhappiness in our lives. The reason we despair, is because we believe that we cannot change things. We believe that the reason things are the way they are, is because of some external factors that are outside of our control.

We are more in control than what we often think

The reality is that our environment is very often not really shaped by forces outside of our control, but actually by forces that are just outside of our current skill of control. There are indeed certain things that are outside of our control, such as the weather, meteoric activity, earthquakes, and certain health conditions. If you are perplexed about conditions such as these, this article is probably not for you. You should rather read an article about how to cope with things, by adjusting your attitude towards them.

However, before you simply dismiss your situation as being in the above category, why not take the time to really think about it. The reason why many people believe that they cannot change a certain set of circumstances, is because of a lack of insight into indirect cause and effect linkages in our society. Most of our circumstances are caused by society, and most of our personal circumstances are caused by our interaction with society.

Bi-Directional Interaction with Society often shapes my circumstances

Interaction implies bi-directional action. I do things that impact my society, and my society does things that impact me. This seems obvious to most of us, because we are aware of our direct interaction and the results. For instance, I can tell someone that works for me, to move a desk, and they will do that. I had a direct influence on that person, and that person influenced the environment directly. The desk was moved. It’s still easy for me to see how I impacted the environment. The desk is now in a different location, pretty much because of my having given an instruction.

Now let’s “move the camera.” It’s two months after I had the desk moved. John is a cleaner that works for a company cleaning our offices. John lost his job two weeks ago. The reason he lost his job, is because I became aware of the fact that the specific area where I work, was no longer kept as clean as it used to. The area is supposed to get cleaned at night, but I’d started noticing that sometimes in the morning, the carpet had clearly not been vacuumed. I complained to the cleaning company, they apparently issued John a warning, but things didn’t improve, and finally John was dismissed.

Let’s now go and follow John around from the day I had the desk moved.

What happened to John?

It’s 18:00 the evening and everyone has gone home. John has just arrived. He’s one of a team of six people that clean this building. His job is to vacuum. Being the person who has to vacuum, he is intensely aware of the shortage of available plug points in this building. He’s heard so many stories of cleaners causing system crashes and all sorts of chaos due to un-plugging critical equipment after hours, that he’s very careful not to unplug anything.

As John gets to a certain department, he notices with a sigh that a desk has been moved – right in front of the only available plug point in that department. The desk is blocking the plug, and on top of the desk are three large network printers – making it far too heavy for him to move by himself.

From now on, every night is a hunt for an open plug point. Sometimes he finds one, sometimes he doesn’t.

A few weeks later he gets called in by his supervisor, Jack. Jack is a formidable man, who doesn’t listen to excuses – or reason for that matter. He gives John a good talking to, and without giving John much chance to say anything, warns him that he’s got one more chance. John tries harder, now even brings a broom and tries to sweep the area, but the broom goes too slowly, and he finds that other areas start getting neglected.

In the meanwhile, I complained again, and John was dismissed.

Was this within John’s control?

Now you might say that John had a range of solutions that were obviously available to him. He could possibly complain to a higher level than his boss, he could go to the labour court (if he’s in a country that has a legal system protecting him,) he could have come and asked me to please arrange for an extra plug point – or something!

Well, the point is that I was unaware of the negative indirect effect that I was having on John, and in the process, on myself. It did not occur to me that I was the cause of my office carpet not getting vacuumed. John did not have the skill or the presence of mind to think through his whole environment and find a way to influence his society in the way that he needed, to keep his job. For John, this was not that obvious. He had a supervisor whom he felt he could not influence at all. He did not know who had decided to move the desk. On top of that he had never even been in my organisation during the day – he knew no-one there. He had no authority and no influence in my organisation. Or did he?

John was unable to see across the borders of his life

John was unable to see across the borders of his life. This is the same problem that many people face every day. They experience the problem in their environment, but they are unable to see what they are able to do, in order to change the environment.

What needs to change? Who can change it?

One of the ways in which to address this is to ask the question: “What needs to change and who can change it?” and then to start tracking who could possibly influence the person that can change something.

So to play another routine through the above example:

John could have faced his problem that first night, and asked himself what needed to change. He would have identified maybe three options:

• · He needed a longer power extension cable, or
• · the desk needed to be moved again, or
• · he needed someone to leave him an open plug point in that vicinity

He could then have started identifying the people that could change these things:

• · His supervisor could approve a longer extension cable for him.
• · Someone in the building with some authority should authorise to move the desk.
• · Someone in the area of the desk should agree to leave open a plug point for him.

The first option would directly solve his problem. If he could speak to his supervisor and the cable was approved, he might be able to solve his problem immediately. But let’s say he tried his supervisor, who refused because there is a safety limit to the length of extension cables, or just because he’s obtuse by nature.

How can I influence those that can change things I need changed?

He now has two options left, and now he starts asking himself: “Who can influence the people that work in that area?” Arguably, any person within an organisation has a better chance to influence someone in that organisation, that someone without – so he might look for the entrance point to the organisation – the receptionist downstairs.

Now to make it more complex, let’s say that the receptionist is a snob and she happens to know John, and that he’s a cleaner – which is below her self-appointed status. When John tries to approach her, she tells him that he is not supposed to be in the building during office hours – and refuses to listen to his story.

So John has to keep up the questions:

· “Who could possibly influence the receptionist?” or

· “Who else could influence the people in that department?” or maybe:

· “How can I directly get into contact with one of the people in that department?”

In answer to these questions, John might decide to write a note addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” and leave it on the desk in question. Or he might look around in the department that evening, and notice an office that seems to be more luxurious than the others – indicating that it possibly belongs to a person in authority. He could take a business card from that office and call the next day, to explain his predicament.

Maybe he would think of someone who knows someone who knows someone else who knows the receptionist.

Find the bridges across the borders in your life

The point is that by continually asking these questions, he would have been able to find the solution. He would have been able to find the bridges across the borders of his own life, into the lives of those who were influencing his life, so that he could influence their lives, in order to rectify the negative influence they were having on him.

The principle doesn’t vary, just the complexity

The variance from John’s life to yours is not whether or not this principle is applicable, but merely the complexity of it.

So next time you are facing some problem in your life, don’t immediately just point to whoever caused it and resign yourself to the fact that you cannot change it. Think about what you want to change, who can change it, and then start building the bridges from that person backwards until you can see a bridge to yourself. Then start building the skill you need to cross those bridges, and soon you will discover a power within yourself which you had never known existed.

There is always another possible solution you haven’t thought of yet

There is one more thing. In the above example, with some thought, John might have been able to come up with more options and more people, in every instance. The same is true in your life. When, at first, you come up against bridges that seem impossible to cross, take the time to think again. You might just find that there are a few other routes you haven’t thought of, accessible by bridges that are more within your skill set to cross.

The more you do this, the more you will find yourself able to look at your environment positively, believing that you can make a difference. You can make your own world and the world of those around you, a better place!