The Illusion of Control

“We fooled ‘em again!”




As a young, fairly new and still naïve Correctional Officer, I headed out the prison’s main gate with my more experienced partner at the end of our 3-11 shift, when he uttered the words; tongue in cheek, “We fooled ‘em again!”

His explanation made such perfect sense to me in my career, that I’ve never forgotten the wisdom that he shared with me. He said, “You don’t really think we’re in control here, do you? It’s all an illusion. It’s like this…. the inmates let us ‘think’ we’re in control. Of course, any second, like someone striking a match, this place could blow!”

Perhaps we as new recruits were taught that concept during training in our academy; I really can’t remember as there was so information much pumped into us during that time. But, the real lessons came with actual ‘real life’ prison experience. In fact, our instructors warned us that the “old timers” would tell us to “forget everything” we learned in the academy. While that wasn’t actually totally true, as we carried our basic book lessons, correctional law, procedures and practical applications with us on the job, we really did get trained by the more experienced staff, and sometimes the inmates……on-the-job. Mostly with the inmates, it was trial and error. You know the “Hmmm…that didn’t work so good, so next time I think I’ll do this…or that!”

It was all a game. We acted “as if” we were in control and they let us think we were in total control. The smartest and most effective correctional staff were the ones who knew the truth. The least effective and most problematic staff were those who tried to “prove” they were in control, usually by force.

I don’t know why I was so able to grasp the “Illusion of Control” concept in my work and why up until now, I couldn’t see what was happening in my personal life. It seems so simple really.

In the book, Codependent No More, by Melody Beattie, she writes; in part, “Control is an illusion. It doesn’t work. We cannot control anyone’s compulsive behaviors. We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind or choices. We cannot control the outcome of events. We cannot control life.”

She continues, “People ultimately do what they want to do. They feel how they want to feel or how they are feeling; they think what they want to think; they do the things they believe they need to do; and they will change only when they are ready to change. It doesn’t matter if they are wrong and we’re right. It doesn’t matter if they are hurting themselves. It doesn’t matter that we could help them if they’d only listen to and cooperate with us. IT DOESN’T MATTER, DOESN’T MATTER, DOESN’T MATTER.”

And, the part that really hit home….“We cannot change people. Any attempts to control them are a delusion as well as an illusion. People will either resist our efforts or redouble our efforts to prove we can’t control them.”

Arrrrgggggh! Why didn’t someone teach me that tool for my personal life a long time ago!!! Why? Why? Why?

The author then relates a story about detachment in which she heard some wisdom “out of the mouth of babes.” She said sometimes her youngest son, Shane, hangs on too tightly and too long after a hug. He starts tipping her over and she’ll lose her balance and then becomes impatient for him to stop the hugging. Then she’ll start to resist, even though she thinks he’s doing all this, trying to get her to stay close a little longer. One night, when her daughter witnessed this, she became frustrated and impatient with her brother saying, “Shane, there comes a time to let go!”

After all of the recent hard knocks, I finally began to understand that we all would like to think that we have total control of our lives. It’s all an illusion, really. We can only control ourselves and our responsibilities.

I’ve let go. I’ve detached. I have stopped the insanity of trying to control what is or is not going on in my household or with others with whom I am close, and it has had an amazing effect. Much of the resistance has stopped and as Tam says, “It’s like a dark cloud has lifted off our home.” Letting go and Letting God is my new mantra and life is unfolding as it should.

And…to think all this time, I had that ol’ prison guard attitude that I was “really fooling them” when in reality, I was only foolin’ myself!