The Bullshit of Control

Most people don’t have a control problem because they’re strong. They have a control problem because they’re scared. Not scared in an obvious way, not shaking in the corner kind of fear, but the quiet kind that shows up as overthinking, over-planning, over-managing everything in their life so nothing slips through their fingers. Somewhere along the way, you learned that if you could just control enough variables, predict enough outcomes, and manage enough details, you could avoid pain, avoid failure, avoid uncertainty. And that belief feels smart. It feels responsible. It feels like you’re taking ownership of your life. But underneath it, there’s something else going on. You’re not leading your life. You’re gripping it so tightly that nothing new can actually enter it.

It starts small. You double-check things that don’t need to be double-checked. You replay conversations in your head. You try to plan five steps ahead for something that hasn’t even happened yet. You hesitate to move unless you feel certain about the outcome. And then slowly, control becomes your safety net. You convince yourself that as long as you stay in control, you’ll be okay. But what you don’t realize is that control doesn’t eliminate risk. It eliminates growth. Because anything that actually changes your life requires you to step into something you can’t fully control.

There’s a story in the Bible that most people either overlook or completely misunderstand because it doesn’t fit the clean, inspirational mold. It’s in 2 Kings 5, and it’s about a man named Naaman. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t struggling to get by. He was powerful. Successful. Respected. A commander. The kind of guy who had built his life on control, structure, and authority. And yet, he had a problem he couldn’t fix. Leprosy. Something outside his control. Something no amount of influence, status, or power could solve.

So he goes looking for help, and he ends up being told to go see the prophet Elisha. And when he gets there, expecting something significant, something fitting for a man of his stature, something that aligns with how he thinks things should work, Elisha doesn’t even come out to meet him. He sends a message. No ceremony. No recognition. No moment. Just instructions. Go wash in the Jordan River seven times, and you’ll be healed.

That’s it.

And Naaman loses it.

Not because it was impossible. Not because it was unclear. Because it didn’t match his expectations. Because it didn’t feel significant enough. Because it wasn’t done the way he thought it should be done. The verse says he went away angry, saying he expected something bigger, something more dramatic, something that made sense to him. And that right there is the problem. Not the instruction. His need to control how the outcome happened.

He had already decided what healing should look like. Already decided how it should happen. Already decided what would make it feel valid. And when reality didn’t match his expectation, he rejected it. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because he didn’t like how it worked. That’s control. That’s the Bullshit Factor in its cleanest form. You’re not rejecting the solution because it’s wrong. You’re rejecting it because it doesn’t fit the way you want things to go.

You see this everywhere. People want change, but only if it happens their way. They want growth, but only if it feels comfortable. They want results, but only if the process makes sense to them. And when it doesn’t, they resist it. They question it. They walk away from it. Not realizing that the very thing they’re rejecting might be exactly what they need.

Naaman almost walked away still sick. Not because there wasn’t a solution. But because his pride and his need for control got in the way of it. It wasn’t until someone around him stepped in and said, essentially, if the instruction had been harder, you would have done it. If it had matched your expectations, you would have followed through. So why not do the simple thing that was actually asked of you? And that’s where it shifts.

Naaman finally lets go.

Not of the problem.

Of his control over how it should be solved.

He goes to the river. Washes once. Twice. Three times. Nothing dramatic happens right away. No instant transformation. No immediate confirmation. Just repetition. Just obedience. Just doing the thing he originally resisted. And by the seventh time, he’s healed.

But here’s the part that matters. The healing didn’t come from the river. It came from letting go of control.

That’s what most people miss.

The breakthrough wasn’t in the action alone. It was in the surrender behind it.

Because as long as he held onto his version of how things should happen, nothing changed.

The moment he released that, everything did.

That’s the tension most people live in. They want change, but they don’t want to release control. They want a different outcome, but they don’t want a different process. They want growth, but they want to dictate how it unfolds. And it doesn’t work like that. The more you try to control everything, the more limited your life becomes. Because you only allow what you understand, what you expect, what you’re comfortable with. And growth rarely shows up in those categories.

Control feels powerful, but it’s actually restrictive. It keeps you in what you already know. It keeps you repeating patterns that feel safe but don’t move you forward. It keeps you from stepping into anything that requires trust, uncertainty, or discomfort. And over time, you don’t just control your life. You confine it.

Here’s the Bullshit Factor Lesson. Let go of needing it to happen your way. Stop rejecting what works just because it doesn’t match your expectations. Stop filtering every opportunity, every solution, every step through your need to feel in control. Because the life you’re trying to build isn’t going to come from managing everything perfectly. It’s going to come from stepping into things you don’t fully control.

Most people aren’t stuck because they don’t have options. They’re stuck because they’ve already decided what those options should look like. And anything outside of that gets dismissed. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s unfamiliar. And unfamiliar feels risky. So they stay where they are, calling it stability, when it’s really just controlled limitation.

The lie is that control keeps you safe. The truth is, it keeps you small. Because the moment you release control, you open yourself up to something different. Something bigger. Something that doesn’t fit neatly into your expectations but actually moves your life forward. And most people will read that, agree with it, and still hold on. Because letting go feels like losing something. When in reality, it’s the only way you gain anything real.