Everything I write comes down to one thing: replacing default with intention. Default is what you do without choosing it, repeating what was done before or what others do. Intention is consciously committing to a direction. Each piece approaches it from a different angle, and together they build toward an authentic, happy and meaningful life.

In my last piece, I wrote about the ego and how protecting an image of ourselves can get in the way of following our path. We can become occupied with how others see us, how they behave, and whether life unfolds as we think it should.

Much of that is outside our control. And that’s exactly why it should not concern us, yet for most of us, it probably consumes much of our attention and energy. How we experience it, however, is something we can work with. We can develop control over whether or not we allow a situation to control us. That freedom can grow through practice. It can also come in a single moment, when a new understanding of who we are or what we are experiencing suddenly becomes clear. We can determine for ourselves how we experience life. For me, that is the most freeing realization there is, and one of the most impactful in learning to live an authentic, happy and meaningful life.

Why it takes so much of our energy
Our minds help us anticipate problems and prepare for what could happen. When something important remains uncertain, we can keep searching for an answer that would make us feel safer or more prepared. Before a difficult conversation, for example, thinking about what we want to say can help us prepare. But we may then keep imagining how the other person will respond, trying to resolve something we cannot know in advance. Worry can feel like a way of protecting ourselves or preventing something from going wrong. Returning to it can become a default, even when it no longer helps us decide what to do.

However, when we default to worry, it can keep the body’s stress response active, including when the situation we are thinking about is not happening now. We may be replaying a conversation that has ended or anticipating something that might happen tomorrow, while remaining tense and on alert in the present. Our attention stays occupied, and we have less opportunity to recover. That helps explain why we can feel drained without having taken any action that changes the situation.

Where your attention goes
This may become clearer when you think of a delayed train while you are on your way to an appointment. The delay may have actual consequences, and you can take action, like checking another route or letting the person you are meeting know that you will be late. Repeatedly checking the clock and arguing with the fact that the train has not arrived, however, will not make it come sooner. Yet that is what we tend to do.

It’s the same with spending attention on what someone might think, what they should have done differently, or how something might turn out. Worry can draw our attention to something that needs action. But once we have done what we can, allowing our mind to continue to replay it doesn’t serve us.

In the Zhuangzi, there is a story of a man who becomes frightened by his shadow and disturbed by his footprints. He runs to escape them, but leaves more footprints, while his shadow keeps pace. He runs until he dies of exhaustion, without realizing that shade would hide his shadow, and standing still would stop him making more footprints.

We can become so occupied with trying to get rid of what we feel that it consumes our attention. Sometimes the first change is to stop fighting it long enough to see what is happening.

About 1900 years ago, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus approached this through, I guess, the same distinction between what is up to us and what is not. His student Arrian compiled a short book from his teachings called the Enchiridion, meaning something like “manual”. It addresses questions remarkably close to those we are exploring here: where to place our attention, how our judgments shape our experience, and how to live without demanding that everything happens as we wish. For me, these ancient teachings are some of the clearest proof of why we need to learn from and study those who came before us. We can be prone to feeling we need to figure life out for ourselves, or assume that by now we must know better than they did. That is absolutely not always the case, in some ways it specifically isn’t.

The handbook opens with that distinction. Our own actions and judgments belong on one side, and things such as reputation and possessions on the other. We can act with honesty and care, for example, but we cannot determine whether others will think well of us for doing so. I view it like this: their response depends on their experiences, their learned patterns and behaviors, how much those patterns govern their reactions, and the beliefs and fears they bring to the situation. We are encountering a person whose life has shaped them in ways we may know very little about. Imagine trying to account for and control all those influences in every person you encounter. Why make our own peace and energy dependent on something so clearly beyond our control? Why hand away that power?

Working with what is
In everyday life, I find it useful to distinguish between what I can do, what I can influence, and what I cannot change. I can prepare for a conversation and pay attention to how I speak. I can influence how it goes, but the other person’s response always remains theirs. Our attention and willpower are too valuable to keep giving them to something we cannot determine. They belong with how we choose to respond, whether we let something in, and how much influence we allow it to have over us.

This again connects with surrender. Surrender includes accepting the reality of this moment, so that you can recognize what it asks of you instead of resisting it. You can give your attention and willpower to a next step without demanding that it produces a particular outcome. You can spend energy insisting that something should not have happened, even though it already has. Or, you can acknowledge that it happened and consider what is possible now. It sounds so simple, yet we tend to kind of suck at practicing it.

Seeing what is happening more clearly
Part of this practice, for me, is learning to distinguish between what is happening and what my mind is adding to it.

Someone speaks sharply to me. That happened. I may then tell myself that they do not respect me, that I am not good enough, or that I need to prove something. This is when I can ask what I actually know, and what I am assuming or making it mean about myself.

There is a spiritual understanding behind this too. Identifying with a mind conditioned by the past keeps us repeating learned patterns. Becoming aware of those patterns creates a possibility of responding differently. When you recognize that those patterns are not who you are, and that the same applies to the other person, you can begin to see the interaction differently. What feels like a personal attack may be an interaction between reactions shaped by two different life histories. Those reactions do not define either of you, and you do not have to let them determine how you respond.

This applies to how we see others as well. I may be encountering someone's learned way of protecting themselves, their fear, or their need to be right. Their essence, as I understand it spiritually, is deeper than those patterns. It’s actually separate from them, these patterns are just part of their growth path through life.

While following the Berkeley program on diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice, I reflected on paying attention to a person’s essence beyond their words or ego. That remains an important starting point for me: trying to understand what someone’s behavior comes from, while recognizing the person beyond it.

This can change how you experience an interaction and allow you to meet difficult situations with compassion. You can allow yourself to address what someone said without making their words a definition of your worth. You can set a boundary while still recognizing their humanity. And in that, you can notice your own learned impulse to defend yourself or strike back, without allowing it to control you.

Practice can change how you experience it
This is more than deciding to behave calmly while everything inside you remains unchanged. My belief is that, with practice, the way we experience a situation can change too. If not instantly, then at least we’ll have tools to help transform it afterward.

I noticed this while attending a conference on inclusivity and equity. The woman on stage was speaking about her own experience with a difficult topic. In the row in front of me, a group of young people kept voicing their disagreements with what she was saying to each other. It annoyed me and made me angry. Here they were, attending a conference on inclusivity, while dismissing someone who was making herself vulnerable by speaking. I was ready to tell them that if they questioned something she said, they could approach her afterward and ask open questions.

Then I noticed what was happening in me, and a solution to try came to mind. I did a loving-kindness meditation toward them, silently wishing them well. My anger disappeared completely, and instead, I could see their behavior as possibly coming from insecurity and a need to establish their own place. I still disagreed with how they were behaving, but I no longer felt the anger. Recognizing their humanity and journey changed how I experienced the situation.

Something that once immediately felt like a personal attack may become recognizable as another person’s pattern. The meaning changes, and so can the emotion that follows. At first, we may recognize a reactive pattern afterward; later, we notice it while it is happening; eventually, awareness can arise as the impulse begins, changing how it unfolds.

I have gotten to know this as a capacity we can develop. We can become less governed by the reactions we have learned. A reaction arising gives us something to notice and work with. It does not mean the practice has failed.

Looking back, I can also question why I felt the need to take responsibility for the situation. The speaker could not hear them, so nobody needed defending at that moment. Was I simply concerned about how they were behaving, or was there also a need to be the person who understood better, who stood up for what was right? Perhaps my own self-image was involved too. Their behavior had triggered something in me, and that deserved my attention as much as what I thought was wrong with them.

Understanding that can help us recognize what is driving a response and choose how to act. I will however never stop standing up for or speaking out on what I believe is right. The times I didn’t tend to haunt me.

Making space for what we feel, approaching it with kindness, and listening to how a situation affects us is part of the practice too. We can pause, notice what is happening in the body, and give ourselves room to understand it. We should extend that same kindness and willingness to understand to the other person, allowing room for what they may be experiencing too.

What research can add

Psychology studies one part of this through cognitive reappraisal: changing how we interpret a situation in a way that adapts its emotional impact. James Gross and Oliver John studied how people usually managed their emotions. They distinguished between reconsidering a situation’s meaning and suppressing emotional expression, meaning hiding what you feel without necessarily changing the feeling itself. People who regularly practiced reappraisal tended to report greater wellbeing and better relationships. Those who regularly suppressed their expression showed a less favorable pattern. I think we can all sense the truth in that.

Research by Brett Ford and colleagues examined accepting our own thoughts and feelings without judging them. People who habitually did this experienced less negative emotion during stressful experiences and tended to have better psychological health.

How we understand stress itself can also matter. In a study by Alia Crum and colleagues, Employees were randomly divided into three groups: one watched short videos emphasizing the potentially helpful effects of stress, another watched videos emphasizing its harmful effects, and a third watched no videos. A few days after the final video, the group that was shown its potentially helpful effects reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression and better work performance. The other groups showed no significant improvements.

These findings give us different ways to consider what we practice. We can question an interpretation, make room for a feeling, or reconsider whether the stress we experience might also help us respond to a demanding situation.

Bringing your attention back to what you can do
For me, the possibility here is wonderful: when you cannot change what is happening, there may still be a great deal you can develop in how you experience it. You can learn to see more clearly, recognize patterns, and stop giving every thought the authority of a fact.

That does not make circumstances irrelevant. As I wrote in the piece on talent and circumstances, people have different room to act, and may need support to make a next step possible. When something is harmful or unjust, our response may include working with others to change it.

The inner work is part of what nourishes us and makes it possible to meet others with greater presence. The energy we spend repeatedly resisting what we cannot change can become available for what we can contribute now.

In practice
Take one concern and separate what you can do from what you can influence and what you cannot change. Be specific. If there is an action available, identify one next step. For what remains outside your control, notice what you are still trying to make happen through worrying.

When you feel caught in a reaction, pause and notice how it feels in your body. Acknowledge it before trying to explain it away.

Ask what actually happened, and what meaning you are adding. What do you actually know for sure? What are you assuming? Does someone else's behavior need to become a statement about who you are?

If another person’s reaction is affecting you, consider whether you may be encountering a learned pattern. Can you recognize the person beyond it, while responding clearly to the behavior itself? Apply the same attention to your own patterns. What in you is being affected, and why? Is there something fair or useful in what they are saying, even if you do not like how they are saying it?

Crum, Salovey & Achor (2013)
Epictetus (n.d.)
Ford et al. (2018)
Freeston et al. (1994)
Gross & John (2003)
Grupe & Nitschke (2013)
Renna et al. (2020)
Tolle (1997)
Zhuangzi (n.d.)