In response to my last blog I was sent a link of Glenn Beck talking with Richard Eyre about Eyre's new book, The Three Deceivers: How Today's Obsessions with Control, Ownership and Independence are ruining the quality of our lives.  I've included an excerpt (Eyre is speaking):

It's what we do in America. We control things. We own things and we become independent. They are like icons. They are like things we worship. And frankly, Glenn, they're great economic principles. I wouldn't argue with them for a minute. But we carry them over and make them spiritual principles. We measure ourselves by how much we own. We measure ourselves by how much we control. We get frustrated when we can't control things, even when we're talking about our own kids. We think we own our kids. We should control them, we should control the people around us, we shouldn't need anyone. And what we end up [with] is we get more isolated, we get more lonely, we get more frustrated and we get more jealous because there's always someone that owns more than we do and controls more than we do and so, you know, they all lead us away.

...these are three powerful economic principles; let's keep them forever. Let's never give up on them for our economy and for our private personal economies, but let's not carry them over to where they become our spiritual paradigms because they all lead us away from humility, they lead us away from a dependence on God, they lead us away from kind of a wonderful serendipity adventuresome kind of a life where we say, you know, I don't want to control everything; I want to just respond correctly to the things that surprise me every single day. 

Wow, an ah-ah moment! So I don't need to feel in control of everything and everyone.  I just need to respond correctly to those things that are out of my control.  Eyre continues:

I mean, I'm a Harvard business school guy. I had a professor there, my favorite professor, guy named Livingstone who had a mantra. He would walk into class every day and he would say, "Never be surprised. If you are ever surprised, it is because you failed to exercise sufficient contingency planning. You must be proactive. You must always act and never react." You get the idea.  

That's the ticket..."Always act and never react."  I waste so much energy reacting that I have very little time for acting.  Hmmmm....