Jesus take the wheel...literally.

*This is part of an entry from my journal that I wanted to share with you guys (if there's anyone that still reads this thing, haha). I've felt an impression that there are things that I've written in my journal that I should also share on my blog, so the next three posts are either full entries or excerpts for recent journal entries.*

Original date written: July 27, 2014

I've been reading a book suggested to me by a friend called "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success", by Deepak Chopra. I've been doing A LOT of underlining in this book, starting at chapter 2 since my notes from chapter 1 are in a notebook. I'll transfer what I underlined into that notebook once I'm done reading it. Anyway, I'm currently on chapter 4, The Law of Least Effort, and I underlined this part that really stood out to me:

"Attention to the ego consumes the greatest amount of energy. When your internal reference point (mentioned also in chapter 1) is the ego, when you seek power and control over other people or seek approval from others, you spend energy in a wasteful way."

This stuck out to me because I have this problem, where I feel I HAVE to be in control of things that I do, or that could concern me. When I have plans made, or an idea of how I want my day to go (outside of work), I expect it to go that way. When they don't go how I planned or how I thought it would, I get frustrated and irritated. The smallest thing could go wrong, and my whole day could be ruined. However, this quote stuck out to me. I'm wasting my energy trying to exert too much control over my life (and also trying to please others, but that's not the point right now). I could let this incident ruin my whole day, or I could sulk and be mad for a little bit, try to focus on the positive aspects of the incident (not being stressed over time, having more time for homework, getting more sleep), and go about my day. So I went with option 2 and sulked, after which I cut my backyard, worked out for an hour, ran the dishwasher, cooked dinner, and worked on my beachbody coach website. 

I know that it's not something that's going to happen overnight, but I can't keep trying to have so much control over things that aren't really in my control, and stressing out or being frustrated when it doesn't go according to my plan. The same goes for things that are in my control.

"Acceptance simply means that you make a commitment: "Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur." This means I will know that this moment is as it should be... When you struggle against this moment, you're actually struggling against the entire universe." 

I think that once I learn how to properly meditate, along with prayer, reading my scriptures, and God's help, I'll be able to relinquish the iron grip of control that I have on my life and be able to actually be happy and realize my purpose and go after it. 

This book is really good so far. I'm eager to read the other book that I bought (by the same friend's suggestion) that Deepak Chopra wrote. This is some insightful stuff!

*current edit: I finished the book mentioned in this post, and it was definitely something that I needed to read. It had a lot of things that I needed to think about and incorporate into my life now. I would suggest this book to other people, for sure.