The only thing you can truly control is your attention. In fact, Life is about controlling your attention. Therefore, the quality of one’s life is directly proportional to how one controls one’s attention. For this to happen though, one needs freedom. The more one has freedom to do what one has to do, the happier one can become.
Life is both beautiful and painful. Being in front something beautiful or painful is both a choice and a product of randomness. To experience beauty, I can take steps to be in front of me without my volition. The same process happens with pain.
The coming of pain and beauty can’t be controlled sometimes. In those circumstances I control my reaction to them. At the same time, I can take control of what comes into my field of consciousness or what I put attention into. I could filter out certain stimulus to prevent me from experiencing pain or beauty. And this decision depends on what I want at any given moment. Sometimes, most of the time, what I let in my life is what I need. It sounds selfish but it isn’t. Everything goes through the self by virtue of agency. I act kindly to others because it is what my self wants.
I am so grateful that I have this control over what I let in my life. I am so grateful that other conscious individuals have this ability too. We are all free to choose what to dedicate our lives into depending to what their minds and bodies can tolerate.