Choose Control

My boys,

You know how you probably have almost everything you need and want?

I hope you do. I hope I have been able to give you a life where you do not have to struggle for some of the things I struggled for. But there is something I need you to understand, because having everything you need does not mean you cannot destroy yourself.

It is two things. I am either killing myself or restricting myself, and I need you to learn something from that.

As men, it is one or the other. You are either going to be killing, stealing, cheating, hurting yourself, or you are going to set boundaries and restrict yourself.

And I need you to understand that these things do not always begin in the extreme. Sometimes it is just the inability to say no. You want something, so you take it. You feel something, so you act on it. You are uncomfortable, so you look for something to make you comfortable. And before you know it, you have built a life around satisfying yourself.

You think you are making decisions, but really, your desires are making them for you.

Controlled freedom would not leave your mouth or your side.

You must learn to tell yourself no. Not because what you want is always bad, but because wanting something is not enough reason to have it. You must be able to deny yourself even the things you can afford, the things you enjoy, and the things nobody would ever know you did.

Boys, I have lived in the gas chamber I put myself in, and now I am trying the labour, the restriction, the control.

I need you to think about that. I put myself there. Nobody had to lock me inside. I could make my own decisions, and those decisions became the very things that held me captive. I was free to do what I wanted, but I was not free from wanting to do it.

Now I am trying something different.

I am learning to live with restrictions I have placed on myself. To do things because they need to be done, not because I feel like doing them. To walk away from things I still want. To build routines and obey them. To understand that just because I can do something does not mean I should.

And boys, this is labour. Real labour.

There is nothing particularly exciting about controlling yourself. Nobody is going to clap because you resisted something. Nobody may even know that you had a choice to make. But you will know. And every time you honour a boundary you set for yourself, you are becoming a man who can trust himself.

That is important, because one day you will have access to things that I cannot protect you from. You will have money, privacy, opportunities, relationships, and the ability to make decisions without asking anybody for permission.

What will govern you then?

If the only reason you do not do something is because somebody might catch you, you are not in control. If the only reason you stop is because you have run out of money, time, or opportunity, you are not in control either.

You must be able to stop yourself.

Learn from this experience. Do you hear me?

This is one I don't want you learning yourself. Learn from me.

I want you to make your own mistakes in life. I know there are things you will only understand by experiencing them. But there are also things you should never need to experience because somebody who loves you has already lived through them and told you what they cost.

That is part of why I am writing these letters. So that my experience can become knowledge for you without my suffering having to become your suffering.

Jesus said life or death, and said, please choose life. Listen to Him.

I think about that instruction a lot. Because sometimes the choice is right in front of us. We know what is good for us, we know what is destroying us, and somehow we still convince ourselves that we can keep choosing what destroys us and escape the consequences.

You cannot keep choosing death and expect life to be the result.

Now I am saying freedom or control. Choose control.

And I am not telling you that life should be one long exercise in denying yourselves happiness. I want you to enjoy your lives. I want you to laugh, travel, love, eat good food, experience beautiful things, and enjoy everything God has given you.

But I want you to be able to put those things down.

I want you to enjoy something without needing it. To love someone without losing yourselves. To have money without becoming its servant. To have power without abusing it. To experience pleasure without allowing pleasure to determine the direction of your lives.

Because if you cannot put something down, you have to ask yourself whether you are really the one holding it.

And please understand that I am writing this while I am still learning it myself. I have not arrived at some perfect place where I no longer struggle with these things. I am doing the work. I am learning the restrictions. I am discovering what it means to live within boundaries I have chosen.

I just want you to begin earlier than I did.

I want you to understand what I am only now learning without having to pay the price I paid to understand it.

Boys, if there is one thing you take from this letter, let it be this:

If you are not controlling yourself, something or someone is controlling you.

And I would rather you learn to control yourselves than spend your lives trying to escape whatever has taken control of you.

Love,

Dad.