On the tail of so much travel —  India, Hawaii —  it’s wasn’t terribly surprising that my To Do list was insanely long. Doctors visits and  taxes to pay and calls to make, oh my. What did strike me as odd though was the feeling in my heart as I looked at the list, it might as well have said “lions and tigers and bears oh my.”

I sat at my desk, carefully writing out each to do, creating sublists of my list on sticky notes that I would obsessively arrange and then re-arrange. With each bullet, each sticky note overhaul, my heart craved calm, soothing, a sense of order and control. But soothing never came, I just looked at my list and panicked. In my mind, that list, was an indictment of my own limitations of control. It was a series of tasks each of which I could fail, any of which could prove me to be a failure. And in that moment, I realized, what was happening in mind might actually be crazy…let’s have a look at the wrong views:

 

• Wrong view 1: That control is even possible.   But really, if I were in control, would I have a huge todo list in the first place? Would I be overwhelmed by it? I don’t want these tasks, I don’t want to feel burdened by them, if my control was real, I could just eliminate them altogether, or at least eliminate the overwhelmed feeling that comes with them. The problem is already evidence that I don’t control.

 

• Wrong view 2: That  if I could just number and order all the tasks of my life, they would be in my power to control. Crazy list making Alana ignored the possibility that even a perfect list did not ensure I controlled each item and its outcome. Or that I can never really be master of a  list that doesn’t really end, there are always more items to add on (impermanence). Or that sometimes things get done on their own, or don’t end up needing to be done at all, list or not.

 

• Wrong view 3: Deeper still was what control over the items on my list meant to me. If I control I am a successful adult, someone who is mature and responsible and all adulty and stuff. Because, thinks crazy Alana,  folks who don’t make lists, who don’t control, are always failures right? List making, controlling, is what it means to be an adult (permanent). If I fail, if I drop the ball, if even one call falls through the cracks, what kind of person am I?

 

• Wrong view 4: The deepest fear, the heart of the matter, if I fail, if I am someone who is not in control, people will judge me and find me lacking. More than anything else, I wanted this list to protect me from looking like a lazy fool, from being someone others see as immature, undependable, irresponsible. Of being someone who is unlovable. But, I started to gather the evidence and question… is it true?

Does everyone even value control the way I do? If my friend Sue valued control would she have been so over weight? And do I even value control absolutely in other people? Mae Yo, my super ninja teacher, often says folks don’t listen to her. If even Mae Yo can’t control her students is control the ultimate measure of success? Do I judge my teacher harshly for her lack of control? When I was a vegetarian I controlled my diet, but did others love me more? In truth most of my family thought I was a pain in the ass to have dinner with.

The truth is, as long as I live in this world, there will be a todo list. A series of obligations, duties, I ought to try my best to fulfill. But the list, it says nothing about me beyond that I am a part of this world.