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What Is Mine to Do

What Is Mine to Do

 

 

یہ مضمون اردو میں پڑھیں

The Hardest Part in the Serenity Prayer

I brought the question to him one day because it had been troubling me for a long time. “There’s something about the Serenity Prayer I don’t fully understand,” I said. He looked up, interested. “What is it?”

“I think most people focus on the first two parts,” I replied. “The serenity to accept what cannot be changed and the courage to change what can be changed. But the part that seems most difficult to me is the last one: the wisdom to know the difference. How do we actually know? How do we decide whether something is within our control?”

He smiled. “That is probably the hardest part.” For a moment, he remained silent, then continued. “The difficulty is that we are not always objective when evaluating situations.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our emotional state shapes how we perceive our ability to influence things,” he said. “When we feel strong, confident, and empowered, we often overestimate our control. We think we can fix everything, change people, solve every problem, and overcome every obstacle. And when we feel weak, we do the opposite. We underestimate our ability and convince ourselves that nothing can be changed, even things that are actually within our reach.”

I laughed. “Sometimes we think we control everything, and other times we think we control nothing.”

“Exactly,” he said, leaning forward slightly. “Let’s start with something simple. There are certain things that are directly within your control.”

“Such as?”

“Your thoughts. Your responses. Your decisions. Your actions. Your words. Your effort.”

“That sounds obvious.”

“It sounds obvious,” he replied, “but most people spend surprisingly little time focusing on these things.” He paused. “Now let’s talk about something else. Other people.”

I smiled. “That’s where life gets complicated.”

He laughed. “Yes. That’s where confusion usually begins. People often assume they have more control over others than they actually do.” He paused, then offered an example. “Children. Parents often believe they control their children. But do they really?”

“At least while the children are young,” I said.

“Not exactly,” he replied. “What they control are actions. A child eats because the parent insists. Sleeps because the parent decides. Follows rules because consequences exist. But that is only control of behavior, not of thoughts.” He let that sentence sit for a moment. “Think about it. Even when your child was five years old, you could not control what he believed, what he felt, or what he thought. You could influence those things, but you could never directly control them.”

I sat with that quietly, because it was true. He went on. “As children grow older, this reality becomes more obvious. Suddenly they disagree. They make their own choices. They form their own opinions. And parents become frustrated, because it feels to them as though something has changed, as though the child who once listened without question has somehow slipped out of their hands.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “But nothing has actually changed. The disagreement, the independence, the private opinions, all of it was there long before it became visible. A small child does not lack a will of his own. He only lacks the strength, the words, and the confidence to make that will known. What grows with age is not the child’s independence. It is only the ability to express what was always there. So, when a parent senses that something has shifted, they are usually right that something looks different. But the underlying truth has not changed at all. It has simply come into view, the way a shape becomes visible once the fog around it clears.” He let that settle for a moment before finishing his thought. “That is when parents discover something that was always true. They were influencing all along, not controlling.”

I thought about several relationships in my life. “Then much of our frustration comes from confusing influence with control.”

He nodded. “A great deal of it.” Then he said something that changed how I thought about responsibility. “Your real circle of control is quite small.”

“That sounds discouraging.”

“It only sounds discouraging because you believe control creates power.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. You control yourself. Your thoughts, responses, and decisions. Everything else is influence.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s already a lot,” he said. “It will feel like a lot once you start using it.”

He drew an imaginary circle with his hand. “Most people spend their lives in the outer circle—the circle of concerns—what people think, what other people should do, what the economy should do, and what family members should do.”

I laughed. “That sounds familiar.”

“It sounds familiar because that’s where most of us live.” He drew a smaller circle inside the larger one. “But when you focus on what you actually control—your actions, your habits, your responses—something interesting happens. Your influence grows.”

That seemed backward to me. “If my circle of control is smaller, why would my influence be larger?”

He smiled. “People are influenced by character. Think about the people who have influenced you most. Were they constantly trying to control you?”

“No,” I said, and I thought immediately of several names.

“What made them influential, then?”

I thought for a moment. “Their integrity. Their consistency. Their example.”

“Exactly. The more responsibility you take for your conduct, the more credible you become, and credibility creates influence. The irony is that people who spend all their time trying to control others usually lose influence, while those who focus on controlling themselves often gain it.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then I asked another question. “How do I know whether something belongs in my circle of control or my circle of influence?”

He smiled. “Ask yourself a simple question. Can I directly decide this? If the answer is yes, it belongs in your circle of control. If the answer is no, it belongs at best in your circle of influence.”

“That sounds simple.”

“It is simple.”

“Then why is it so difficult?”

He smiled again. “Because, emotionally, we don’t like the answer.” We both laughed. “Think about it,” he continued. “You want someone to appreciate you. Can you make them appreciate you directly?”

“No. I can only influence them.”

“You want your child to make wise choices. Can you make those choices for them?”

“No. I can only guide.”

“Exactly.” He grew thoughtful. “Much of our anxiety stems from trying to carry responsibilities that do not belong to us. We want certainty. We want guarantees. We want complete control over outcomes. We want people to respond exactly as we hope. But life doesn’t work that way.”

“No,” I said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

He nodded. “We are responsible for effort, not outcomes.” That line reminded me of so many spiritual teachings I had encountered over the years. “God never gave us control over everything,” he continued. “He gave us responsibility.” The distinction felt profound, and I sat with it for a while.

As our conversation ended, I found myself thinking again about the Serenity Prayer. For years, I had assumed that serenity and courage were the difficult parts. Now I understood why wisdom sits between them, because without it, we try to change what cannot be changed or surrender what should be changed. Perhaps wisdom begins when we stop asking how to control this situation and start asking instead what is mine to do here. That question quietly returns us to reality.

My thoughts are mine. My actions are mine. My responses are mine. My effort is mine. Other people are not. Outcomes are not. The future is not. Strangely, the clearer we see those boundaries, the lighter life becomes. Not because problems disappear, but because we stop carrying burdens that were never ours to begin with.

 

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The Decision Is Never Just the Decision

The Decision Is Never Just the Decision

 

 

 

یہ مضمون اردو میں پڑھیں

I said, almost casually, “I understand opportunity cost in theory—but in real life, decisions still feel confusing.”

He nodded. “That’s because most people only think about opportunity cost where it feels obvious.”

“Like money?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “But the real cost of decisions is rarely just financial.” He explained that human beings make thousands of decisions every day, and most of them don’t deserve deep deliberation. “When you go to a grocery store,” he said, “you don’t stand frozen between bread and milk, calculating the meaning of life. You buy what you need and move on.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

“And that’s fine,” he continued. “Minor decisions don’t need heavy reflection. There’s no danger in that.”

He paused and then added, “The mistake is treating major decisions the same way.” He explained that important decisions require a different mindset—not urgency, not convenience, but intentional deliberation. “Opportunity cost,” he said, “means that when you choose one thing, you are always choosing to let go of something else.”

I nodded. “Even if we don’t see it.”

“Especially if you don’t see it,” he replied. He pointed out that most people reduce decisions to a simple comparison: more pros versus fewer cons. “That’s lazy thinking,” he said gently. “Because not all pros are equal.”

He gave an example. “You may have ten advantages on one side,” he said, “but if none of them actually matter to you, what have you gained?”

“And one disadvantage,” I added slowly, “might outweigh all of them.”

He smiled. “Now you’re thinking.” He explained that every serious decision must be examined across multiple dimensions. “Financial, physical, emotional, moral, spiritual,” he said. “Call them what you want—but don’t ignore them.” Then, he emphasized something important, “It’s not enough to list these pros and cons,” he said. “You must assign value to them.”

“How?” I asked.

“By asking,” he replied, “How important is this to me—really? Not ideally. Not theoretically. But practically.” He also warned me about a common trap, “People often say something should be important,” he said, “but it isn’t—at least not yet.”

“That sounds uncomfortable,” I said.

“It is,” he replied. “But honesty always is.” He explained that clarity doesn’t come from pretending to value something. It comes from accurately recognizing what currently drives your choices. “You can’t align your decisions,” he said, “with values you haven’t actually internalized.”

I asked him, “What if I miss something? What if my evaluation is imperfect?”

He smiled. “It will be.”

“So what’s the point?” I asked.

“The point,” he said, “is not perfection. It’s to become more reflective.” He explained that even an imperfectly weighted decision is far better than an impulsive one—because it trains the mind to pause, to compare, to see beyond the immediate. “Deliberation,” he said, “is a muscle.” He leaned forward and said,  “When you repeatedly practice intentional decision-making, something shifts.”

“What?” I asked.

“You stop being reactive,” he replied. “You stop being dragged by urgency. You become someone who chooses, rather than someone who responds.” Then, he gave me a final thought, “Every important decision,” he said, “is also a declaration.”

“A declaration of what?” I asked.

“Of what you value,” he replied. “Of what you’re willing to give up. Of who you are becoming.” He paused, then added quietly, “The decision is never just the decision. It’s the direction you’re choosing—over and over again.”

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Learning to Stay in My Domain

Learning to Stay in My Domain

 

 

 

یہ مضمون اردو میں پڑھیں

I said it almost helplessly, one day, when a close relative’s diagnosis had just come to light. “It feels impossible not to think about it,” I said. “Every time I close my eyes, my mind runs ahead. What if this happens? What if that happens? Where will this end?”

He listened quietly, without interrupting and without rushing to correct me. Then he asked softly, “Tell me — what exactly are you thinking about?”

I paused.

“The future,” I said. “What will happen next. How bad it could get.”

He nodded and said, “And is that future in your hands?”

That question stayed with me longer than I expected.

He didn’t say that thinking about the future was wrong. He said something subtler: there is a difference between thinking responsibly and thinking helplessly. “When a painful situation appears,” he said, “our mind immediately starts producing scenes. Worst-case scenes. Not because they are real, but because they are emotionally loud. And loud thoughts are often mistaken for important thoughts.”

He explained to me that much of our distress comes not from what is happening, but from what we start imagining might happen. These imagined outcomes belong to a space we might call the circle of concern — things that matter emotionally but lie outside our control.

“The problem,” he said, “is not that you care. The problem is that you are investing your mental energy where it cannot produce anything useful.”

I realized how much time I was spending inside that circle — replaying scenarios, rehearsing losses that had not yet occurred, grieving futures that were still only thoughts.

Then he shifted the conversation. “Instead of asking, ‘What might happen?’ ask, ‘What can I do?’”

That felt like a small change in words, but it carried a massive change in posture.

He gave an example that immediately resonated with me.

“Suppose you talk to someone who has already gone through a similar illness in their family,” he said. “You can ask two kinds of questions. You can ask, ‘How much suffering was there?’ or you can ask, ‘What helped? Who guided you? What should I be careful about?’ One type of conversation increases helplessness. The other increases agency.”

I recognized myself in that. I had been collecting stories of pain, not maps of navigation.

He wasn’t saying that pain should be denied or silenced. He said that pain should not become the sole content of our thinking. “There is a difference between acknowledging suffering and dwelling inside it,” he said.

And then he said something that restructured my entire way of relating to fear.

“There are two domains,” he said. “One is yours. One belongs to God. The confusion begins when you start working in God’s domain and abandon your own.”

I knew what he meant.

The outcome, the length of life, the final results — those were not mine to manage. But finding a good doctor, seeking reliable advice, arranging care, being emotionally present — those were mine.

Yet ironically, I was doing the opposite: obsessing over what I could not control, and neglecting what I could.

“Every time your thoughts go into what is not yours,” he said, “your energy is being drained from what is yours.”

That explained why I was so exhausted — even though I hadn’t done anything useful.

He reminded me that emotional stability does not come from eliminating concern, but from placing concern at the appropriate place. “It is natural,” he said, “to feel fear when something serious happens. That fear is not abnormal. What becomes unhealthy is when fear becomes obsession, and concern becomes paralysis.”

He gave a simple childhood example.

“When we were children and knew a vaccination was coming,” he said, “we felt anxious all morning. But the injection would still be administered. The only choice we had was whether to spend hours suffering mentally before it, or endure it once and be done with it.”

That was such a simple example, yet so accurate.

I realized how often I chose to suffer many times mentally before suffering even once in reality.

Then he said something I had never thought about before.

“Trying to eliminate uncertainty is what opens the door to superstition.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“When you cannot tolerate uncertainty,” he explained, “you start looking for false certainties — magical thinking, exaggerated predictions, irrational patterns. But this world is built on uncertainty. Even the most righteous person does not escape it.”

This was strangely liberating. I had been trying to become mentally secure by predicting everything. He was telling me that mental security comes from accepting that not everything can be predicted — and still acting responsibly within that uncertainty.

“Your job,” he said, “is not to make life predictable. Your job is to remain functional and principled in uncertainty.”

That changed something in me.

He didn’t ask me to stop thinking. He taught me what to think. He didn’t ask me to stop feeling. He taught me how to place feelings within action. He advised me to become vigilant about the content of my conversations as well.

“Not every conversation is innocent,” he said. “Some conversations keep you inside helplessness. Some pull you back into agency.” He suggested being selective: whom to ask, what to ask, and why to ask. Not every story deserves your attention. Not every experience deserves your emotional investment.

Because attention itself is a resource.

I began noticing how often my emotional state shifted simply by what I chose to talk about, listen to, or dwell on. And slowly, something remarkable happened. The situation had not changed. The uncertainty was still there. But I was calmer. Not because I knew what would happen — but because I knew what was mine to do. I learned that peace does not come from controlling outcomes, but from honoring responsibilities. And that emotional stability is not the absence of fear, but the presence of direction.

He ended that conversation with a sentence I still repeat to myself when my mind starts wandering into dark corridors: “Whenever you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself: Am I standing in my domain… or trying to live in God’s?”

Every time I return to my domain — to action, to care, to effort, to prayer — my heart becomes lighter. Not because the burden is gone, but because it is now carried correctly.

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