"Stop caring/stressing/worrying about things you can’t control" is a sentence you have probably read or heard before. This rather interesting idea is similar to eastern religion quotes such as Dalai Lama XIV’s: “If it can be solved, there’s no need to worry, and if it can’t be solved, worry is of no use."

Worry in itself might be a helpful tool, but excessive worrying can become harmful rather quickly. To stop worrying entirely is quite impossible and not really what is meant by these quotes. However, having the mindset and awareness to think about your worries in this way is beneficial to minimize its damaging effects.

With this in mind, it is important to remain fair in what is, and what isn’t in your control. Deceiving yourself into thinking that something is beyond your control to avoid responsibility and thus avoid worrying is not the path we are trying to take here. So, be honest in what you can and can’t do, even if you’re only able to take one small step. But, after having done the things within your power, try to let go of the worry.

Make choices based on values and independence.

Even with the right mindset, it is not easy to just let go of things beyond your control. Therefore, continuously and consistently trying to reduce these uncontrolled things beforehand can be helpful.

By making choices based on your current values, you are doing the things that you feel are most important to you and are worth spending time on. You are also less likely to regret these choices in the future. In addition to this, you should favor the choices that result in less dependence on things you have no control over. This dependence could be to either companies, people, technology, locations, etc. This will increase your control, freedom, and, thus, your ability to do something about your worries and the ability to make changes to your life more easily.

In my opinion, this goes somewhat hand-in-hand to the quantity of items you possess. Having fewer items increases peace of mind by removing the worry of maintenance, storage, potential loss,…​ That said, this "minimalist" lifestyle, which also translates extremely well in technology and software, is a topic for another day.

In this day and age, most of us are already very dependent on certain luxuries and systems. I too prefer comfortably living through winter times in a heated house with running water and electricity. And, I too am currently dependent on technologies such as computers and the internet to share this information around the globe. Obviously, you should not stretch this too far and abstain from all of this, but try and be aware of your dependency to certain entities when making decisions.

Let’s end this with a quote that can have many implications, but which remains rather beautiful when left to its simplistic nature:

"Don’t worry, be happy" ~ Meher Baba