13 Things You'll Never Control In Life, So Stop Obsessing
Here's the harsh truth: no matter how much you plan, prepare, or perfect, there are some things in life you will never be able to control. And yet, you exhaust yourself trying. You twist yourself into knots, obsess over the 'what ifs,' and lose sleep trying to force outcomes that were never in your hands to begin with. It's not just a waste of time—it's a slow erosion of your peace. Here are 13 things you absolutely cannot control—so stop trying, and start setting yourself free.
No matter how flawless you are, someone will misunderstand you, dislike you, or straight-up resent you—and that's not your problem to solve. You could bend over backward, be the most thoughtful person in the room, and still end up the villain in someone else's story. Trying to control how others see you is a recipe for burnout, not belonging.
You can't make everyone approve of you—and you shouldn't. The sooner you let go of managing their perceptions, the freer you'll feel.
You can set boundaries, communicate clearly, and show up with kindness—but at the end of the day, how someone treats you is a reflection of them, not you. As Psych Central points out, your boundaries matter, but you can't control another person's behavior. If they're dismissive, disrespectful, or cruel, that's their baggage to carry.
The trap is thinking you can love someone into treating you better. You can't. Your worth is not tied to someone else's behavior—and trying to control it will only drain you.
You can do everything 'right'—work hard, stay consistent, follow all the advice—and still not get the outcome you want. According to research in the Nature Communications journal on cognitive control, people allocate more effort when they expect a reward, but outcomes are still influenced by factors beyond their control. TL;DR: Success isn't a formula; it's a combination of timing, opportunity, and a million variables you'll never fully have influence over.
Trying to predict or force the result will only make you bitter when life doesn't play by your rules. Focus on what you can control—your process, your effort, your resilience—and let the outcome go.
You can't make someone stay if they're ready to go. People leave—relationships end, friendships fade, seasons change. You can beg, overextend, and lose yourself trying to keep them, but if they want out, they'll go.
The pain is real, but so is the freedom that comes from accepting this truth. You don't have to hold on so tight.
Love, career breakthroughs, family, personal growth—none of it happens on the timeline you expect. Research published in Frontiers in Psychology on critical life events confirms that major transitions are often unpredictable and can have significant impacts on psychological health, especially when they occur unexpectedly. Basically, you can plan your whole life down to the minute, and the universe will still throw you curveballs.
Trying to force timing will leave you frustrated and disconnected from the present. Surrendering to your timeline—messy, unpredictable, and imperfect as it is—is where the peace lives.
You are not responsible for anyone else's happiness, sadness, anger, or insecurity. You can support, empathize, and love—but you can't fix how someone feels. As Psych Central shares, trying to regulate another person's emotional world will leave you drained, resentful, and stuck in cycles that aren't yours to carry.
The freedom is in the boundaries: This is mine. That is yours.
You can replay it a thousand times, dissect every decision, and spiral over the 'should haves'—but the past is done. No amount of mental gymnastics will rewrite what's already happened.
What you can control is the meaning you give it—and how you move forward. Let the past be a teacher, not a prison.
You can visualize, plan, and set intentions—but you can't predict the future, no matter how hard you try. Life will always throw unexpected challenges, opportunities, and plot twists your way.
Trying to control what's next robs you of the present. The antidote? Radical presence. Show up fully now—it's the only thing that's ever been in your hands.
You can give advice, express your concerns, and hope for the best—but you can't make decisions for anyone else. Watching people you love make choices you wouldn't is one of life's most painful realities. But their path is theirs—not yours to control, fix, or rescue.
Letting go of that responsibility is hard—but it's also the only way to protect your own peace.
Grief, heartbreak, burnout—none of it moves on your schedule. You can't rush the process, no matter how much you want to feel better now. Healing unfolds on its own messy, non-linear timeline—and that's okay.
The pressure to 'get over it' only makes it harder. Give yourself the grace you so freely give to others.
You can explain, clarify, and pour your heart out—but some people will never fully get you. And that's not a reflection of your worth.
Spending your energy trying to convince others of your perspective will leave you feeling unseen and unheard. Save that energy for the people who do get you—those are your people.
The news cycle, global events, the heartbreak of injustice—it's overwhelming. And while you can advocate, vote, donate, and make your voice heard, you can't singlehandedly fix it all.
Trying to control the world's chaos will break you. Focus on the impact you can make—your community, your relationships, your corner of the world. That's where real change starts.
Here's the kicker: the more you try to control, the more out of control you feel. It's a trap—because the need for control is often just anxiety in disguise. The antidote? Surrender.
Letting go isn't giving up—it's trusting that you'll figure it out, even when the plan falls apart. You can't control everything. But you can control how you meet the chaos—with grace, courage, and a little bit of trust.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
20 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
NFL widows struggled to care for ex-players with CTE. They say a new study minimizes their pain
BOSTON (AP) — Dozens of widows and other caregivers for former NFL players diagnosed with CTE say a published study is insulting and dismissive of their experience living with the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football. An open letter signed by the players' wives, siblings and children says the study published in the May 6 issue of Frontiers in Psychology suggests their struggles caring for loved ones was due to 'media hype' about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, rather than the disease itself. The implication that 'caregiver concerns are 'inevitable' due to 'publicity' is callous, patronizing, and offensive,' they said. 'The burden we experienced did not happen because we are women unable to differentiate between our lived experience and stories from TV or newspaper reports,' they wrote in the letter. 'Our loved ones were giants in life, CTE robbed them of their futures, and robbed us of our futures with them. Please don't also rob us of our dignity.' The pushback was led by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, herself a medical researcher and the widow of former Steelers and Chargers end Ralph Wenzel, who developed dementia and paranoia and lost his ability to speak, walk and eat. He was first diagnosed with cognitive impairment in 1999 — six years before Pittsburgh center Mike Webster's CTE diagnosis brought the disease into the mainstream media. 'My own experience, it just gave a name to what I witnessed every day. It didn't put it in my head,' Perfetto said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'It gave it a name. It didn't change the symptoms.' The study published last month asked 172 caregivers for current and former professional football players 'whether they believed their partner had 'CTE.'' Noting that all of the respondents were women, Perfetto questioned why their experiences would be minimized. 'Women run into that every day,' she said. 'I don't think that's the only factor. I think the motivation is to make it seem like this isn't a real issue. It's not a real disease. It's something that people glommed on to because they heard about it in the media.' Hopes for study 'quickly turned to disappointment' The letter was posted online on Monday under the headline, 'NFL Caregivers to Harvard Football Player Health Study: Stop Insulting Us!' It had more than 30 signatures, including family of Hall of Famers Nick Buoniconti and Louis Creekmur. It praises the study for examining the fallout on loved ones who weathered the violent mood swings, dementia and depression that can come with the disease. The letter says the study gets it wrong by including what it considers unsupported speculation, such as: 'Despite being an autopsy-based diagnosis, mainstream media presentations and high-profile cases related to those diagnosed postmortem with CTE may have raised concerns among living players about CTE.' The letter said these are 'insulting conclusions that were not backed by study evidence.' 'Rather than exploring the lived experiences of partners of former athletes, they instead implied the partners' anxiety was caused by watching the news ... as if the media is to blame for the severe brain atrophy caused by CTE in our loved ones,' they wrote. Study authors Rachel Grashow and Alicia Whittington said in a statement provided to the AP that the goal of their research is 'to support NFL families, especially those caring for affected players or grieving for lost loved ones.' 'We regret if any of our work suggested otherwise,' they said. 'Our intent was not to minimize CTE — a disease that is far too real — but to point out that heightened attention to this condition can intensify existing concerns, and that symptoms attributed to CTE may, in some cases, stem from other treatable conditions that also deserve recognition and care.' But Perfetto feared the study was part of a trend to downplay or even deny the risks of playing football. After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged in 2016 a link between football and CTE and eventually agreed to a settlement covering 20,000 retired players that provided up to $4 million for those who died with the disease. (Because it requires an examination of the brain tissue, CTE currently can only be diagnosed posthumously.) 'Why would a researcher jump to 'the media' when trying to draw conclusions out of their data, when they didn't collect any information about the media,' Perfetto told the AP. 'To me, as a researcher, you draw the implications from the results and you try to think of, practically, 'Why you come to these conclusions? Why would you find these results?' Well, how convenient is it to say that it was the media, and it takes the NFL off the hook?' 'By players, for players' The caregivers study is under the umbrella of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University , a multifaceted effort 'working on prevention, diagnostics, and treatment strategies for the most common and severe conditions affecting professional football players.' Although it is funded by the NFL Players Association, neither the union nor the league has any influence on the results or conclusions, the website says. 'The Football Players Health Study does not receive funding from the NFL and does not share any data with the NFL,' a spokesperson said. Previous research — involving a total of more than 4,700 ex-players — is on topics ranging from sleep problems to arthritis. But much of it has focused on brain injuries and CTE, which has been linked to contact sports, military combat and other activities that can involve repetitive head trauma. When he died with advanced CTE in 2012 at age 69, Wenzel could no longer recognize Perfetto and needed help with everyday tasks like getting dressed or getting out of bed — an added problem because he was a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than she is. 'When he died, his brain had atrophied to 910 grams, about the size of the brain of a 1-year-old child,' the letter said. Former Auburn and San Diego Chargers running back Lionel 'Little Train' James, who set the NFL record for all-purpose yards in 1985, was diagnosed with dementia at 55 and CTE after he died at 59. 'Treatable conditions were not the reason Lionel went from being a loving husband and father to someone so easily agitated that his wife and children had to regularly restrain him from becoming violent after dodging thrown objects,' the letter said. 'They were not likely to be the driving force behind his treatment-resistant depression, which contributed to alcoholism, multiple stays in alcohol rehabilitation treatment centers, arrests, suicidal ideation, and ultimately, his commitment to a mental institution.' Kesha James told the AP that she would disable the car to keep her husband from driving drunk. She said she had never spoken of her struggles but chose to tell her story now to remove the stigma associated with the players' late-in-life behavior — and the real-life struggles of their caregivers. 'I have videos that people probably would not believe,' James said. 'And I'll be honest with you: It is nothing that I'm proud of. For the last three years I've been embarrassed. I'm just going public now because I do want to help bring awareness to this — without bringing any shame to me and my kids — but just raise the awareness so that no other family can experience what I did.' ___ AP NFL:
San Francisco Chronicle
20 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
NFL widows struggled to care for ex-players with CTE. They say a new study minimizes their pain
BOSTON (AP) — Dozens of widows and other caregivers for former NFL players diagnosed with CTE say a published study is insulting and dismissive of their experience living with the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football. An open letter signed by the players' wives, siblings and children says the study published in the May 6 issue of Frontiers in Psychology suggests their struggles caring for loved ones was due to 'media hype' about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, rather than the disease itself. The implication that 'caregiver concerns are 'inevitable' due to 'publicity' is callous, patronizing, and offensive,' they said. 'The burden we experienced did not happen because we are women unable to differentiate between our lived experience and stories from TV or newspaper reports,' they wrote in the letter. 'Our loved ones were giants in life, CTE robbed them of their futures, and robbed us of our futures with them. Please don't also rob us of our dignity.' The pushback was led by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, herself a medical researcher and the widow of former Steelers and Chargers end Ralph Wenzel, who developed dementia and paranoia and lost his ability to speak, walk and eat. He was first diagnosed with cognitive impairment in 1999 — six years before Pittsburgh center Mike Webster's CTE diagnosis brought the disease into the mainstream media. 'My own experience, it just gave a name to what I witnessed every day. It didn't put it in my head,' Perfetto said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'It gave it a name. It didn't change the symptoms.' The study published last month asked 172 caregivers for current and former professional football players 'whether they believed their partner had 'CTE.'' Noting that all of the respondents were women, Perfetto questioned why their experiences would be minimized. 'Women run into that every day,' she said. 'I don't think that's the only factor. I think the motivation is to make it seem like this isn't a real issue. It's not a real disease. It's something that people glommed on to because they heard about it in the media." Hopes for study 'quickly turned to disappointment' The letter was posted online on Monday under the headline, 'NFL Caregivers to Harvard Football Player Health Study: Stop Insulting Us!' It had more than 30 signatures, including family of Hall of Famers Nick Buoniconti and Louis Creekmur. It praises the study for examining the fallout on loved ones who weathered the violent mood swings, dementia and depression that can come with the disease. The letter says the study gets it wrong by including what it considers unsupported speculation, such as: 'Despite being an autopsy-based diagnosis, mainstream media presentations and high-profile cases related to those diagnosed postmortem with CTE may have raised concerns among living players about CTE." The letter said these are "insulting conclusions that were not backed by study evidence.' 'Rather than exploring the lived experiences of partners of former athletes, they instead implied the partners' anxiety was caused by watching the news ... as if the media is to blame for the severe brain atrophy caused by CTE in our loved ones," they wrote. Study authors Rachel Grashow and Alicia Whittington said in a statement provided to the AP that the goal of their research is 'to support NFL families, especially those caring for affected players or grieving for lost loved ones.' 'We regret if any of our work suggested otherwise,' they said. 'Our intent was not to minimize CTE — a disease that is far too real — but to point out that heightened attention to this condition can intensify existing concerns, and that symptoms attributed to CTE may, in some cases, stem from other treatable conditions that also deserve recognition and care.' But Perfetto feared the study was part of a trend to downplay or even deny the risks of playing football. After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged in 2016 a link between football and CTE and eventually agreed to a settlement covering 20,000 retired players that provided up to $4 million for those who died with the disease. (Because it requires an examination of the brain tissue, CTE currently can only be diagnosed posthumously.) 'Why would a researcher jump to 'the media' when trying to draw conclusions out of their data, when they didn't collect any information about the media,' Perfetto told the AP. "To me, as a researcher, you draw the implications from the results and you try to think of, practically, 'Why you come to these conclusions? Why would you find these results?' Well, how convenient is it to say that it was the media, and it takes the NFL off the hook?' 'By players, for players' The caregivers study is under the umbrella of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, a multifaceted effort "working on prevention, diagnostics, and treatment strategies for the most common and severe conditions affecting professional football players.' Although it is funded by the NFL Players Association, neither the union nor the league has any influence on the results or conclusions, the website says. 'The Football Players Health Study does not receive funding from the NFL and does not share any data with the NFL,' a spokesperson said. Previous research — involving a total of more than 4,700 ex-players — is on topics ranging from sleep problems to arthritis. But much of it has focused on brain injuries and CTE, which has been linked to contact sports, military combat and other activities that can involve repetitive head trauma. When he died with advanced CTE in 2012 at age 69, Wenzel could no longer recognize Perfetto and needed help with everyday tasks like getting dressed or getting out of bed — an added problem because he was a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than she is. "When he died, his brain had atrophied to 910 grams, about the size of the brain of a 1-year-old child,' the letter said. Former Auburn and San Diego Chargers running back Lionel 'Little Train' James, who set the NFL record for all-purpose yards in 1985, was diagnosed with dementia at 55 and CTE after he died at 59. 'Treatable conditions were not the reason Lionel went from being a loving husband and father to someone so easily agitated that his wife and children had to regularly restrain him from becoming violent after dodging thrown objects,' the letter said. 'They were not likely to be the driving force behind his treatment-resistant depression, which contributed to alcoholism, multiple stays in alcohol rehabilitation treatment centers, arrests, suicidal ideation, and ultimately, his commitment to a mental institution.' Kesha James told the AP that she would disable the car to keep her husband from driving drunk. She said she had never spoken of her struggles but chose to tell her story now to remove the stigma associated with the players' late-in-life behavior — and the real-life struggles of their caregivers. 'I have videos that people probably would not believe,' James said. 'And I'll be honest with you: It is nothing that I'm proud of. For the last three years I've been embarrassed. I'm just going public now because I do want to help bring awareness to this — without bringing any shame to me and my kids — but just raise the awareness so that no other family can experience what I did." ___
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Sleep apnoea cases may double this century due to global warming, researchers warn
Hotter nights caused by climate crisis could make sleep apnoea much more common and more dangerous by the end of the century, a new study has found. Rising temperatures are likely to worsen obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) – a sleep disorder already affecting nearly a billion people worldwide and linked to heart disease, dementia and early death, researchers said. The study, led by researchers at Flinders University and published in Nature Communications, is the first to model how climate change may intensify the severity and health impact of OSA. 'This study helps us to understand how environmental factors like climate might affect health by investigating whether ambient temperatures influence the severity of OSA,' said lead author Dr Bastien Lechat of Flinders University's FHMRI Sleep Health. Researchers analysed more than 58 million nights of sleep data from over 116,000 people across 29 countries, recorded via an under-mattress sensor that tracked breathing disturbances during sleep. The data, collected over several years, was then matched with hourly climate data from global climate models to simulate changes in OSA severity under different warming scenarios. 'Overall, we were surprised by the magnitude of the association between ambient temperature and OSA severity,' said Dr Lechat. 'Higher temperatures were associated with a 45 per cent increased likelihood of a sleeper experiencing OSA on a given night.' The study found that the temperature-related increase in OSA severity was particularly pronounced in European countries compared to Australia or the US, which researchers suggest may be linked to differing access to air conditioning. Researchers used disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to estimate the health and economic burden of climate-exacerbated sleep apnoea. They found that in 2023 alone, rising temperatures were linked to the loss of approximately 800,000 healthy life years across the 29 countries studied. 'This number is similar to other medical conditions, such as bipolar disorder, Parkinson's disease or chronic kidney diseases,' said Dr Lechat. The total estimated economic loss was around $98bn, with $68bn attributed to wellbeing loss and $30bn to reduced workplace productivity. Senior researcher Professor Danny Eckert said the sample may under-represent the real-world burden of OSA in lower-income countries, as the data primarily came from individuals in high-income regions with better access to cooling and healthcare. 'This may have biased our estimates and led to an under-estimation of the true health and economic cost,' he said. In Australia alone, the cost of sleep-related health issues including OSA has previously been estimated at AU$66bn a year. The team now plans to investigate potential interventions, including how access to cooling or behavioural adaptations might reduce sleep apnoea severity under warming conditions. 'Going forward, we want to design intervention studies that explore strategies to reduce the impact of ambient temperatures on sleep apnoea severity as well as investigate the underlying physiological mechanisms,' Professor Eckert said. Without stronger global climate action, the burden of sleep apnoea is likely to rise sharply, the study warns, exacerbating public health challenges and straining economies.
