#44: What's Really In Our Control?

☀️  When caring becomes carrying 

I've been thinking about the difference between being informed and being overwhelmed.

There's this moment that keeps happening: I'll read about something that shakes me, something I genuinely care about, and I'll feel this immediate pressure to act on it. Share it. Comment on it. Stay updated. As if my attention alone could somehow influence an outcome shaped by forces I'll never touch.

And then I'll turn to my own life and realize I've been avoiding the one email I need to send, the conversation I need to have, the decision that's genuinely mine to make.

The Stoics had a word for this, though they weren't talking about doomscrolling. They drew a circle around what's actually up to you (your actions, your focus, your response). Everything outside that circle is not your direct problem. 

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing awareness with agency. We track news we can't influence, worry about opinions we can't control, and obsess over outcomes that were never ours to determine. The exhaustion isn't from caring too much, but from trying to manage things that were never meant to be managed.

So let’s explore more resources on this.

📖 3 Articles to Spark Your Curiosity

1. To be happier, focus on what's within your control
   The Stoic dichotomy of control isn't about giving up or becoming passive. It's about directing your energy toward the variables you can actually influence and releasing the rest. This piece breaks down why that shift reduces anxiety and increases effectiveness.
   → Read on Aeon
   

2. So You Want to Be a Strategist
   Strategy isn't about predicting the future. It's about understanding which decisions matter and which ones don't. Zoe Scaman explores how genuine strategic thinking requires clarity about what you can shape versus what you simply need to adapt to.
   → Read on Substack
   

3. Critical Ignoring: The Thinking Skill the Internet Age Demands
   In an environment designed to hijack your attention, the ability to deliberately ignore information is now a survival skill. This article introduces critical ignorance as a counterbalance to critical thinking. Knowing what not to engage with is just as important as knowing what to question.
   → Read on The Wall Street Journal

🗞️ 3 Headlines Worth Exploring

1. What's the Minimum Amount of Exercise You Need?
   Researchers keep refining the answer: it's less than you think, but it's not zero. The latest science on the minimum effective dose for maintaining health, building strength, and improving longevity. Sometimes the question isn't "how much can I do?" but "what's the smallest change that truly matters?"
   → Read on The New York Times
   

2. The Celestial Events Worth Watching in 2026
   A full calendar of eclipses, meteor showers, and planetary alignments happening this year. These events are entirely predictable and entirely beyond our control.
   → Read on CNN
   

3. Ways to Make Your Life Easier in 2026
   Practical, small adjustments that reduce friction in daily life. From rethinking your morning routine to reorganizing your digital workspace, these are the changes you can actually implement because they're squarely within your control.
   → Read on The Guardian

☀️ 3 Actions to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

1. Practice the 24-Hour News Fast
   Pick one day this week and completely ignore the news cycle. No headlines, no social media news feeds, no breaking alerts. Notice what happens when you stop tracking things you can't influence.
   

2. Draw Your Circle of Control
   Take ten minutes and write down everything currently occupying your mental energy. Then draw a circle and put only the things you can directly influence inside it. Everything else stays outside. Look at how much energy you've been spending outside that circle. Pick one thing inside the circle that you've been avoiding and do it this week.
   

3. Set Your Minimum Viable Threshold
   Choose one area of your life where you've been chasing optimization (fitness, productivity, learning). Define the absolute minimum that still counts as meaningful progress. Then commit to just that for two weeks. Sometimes the smallest sustainable action beats the perfect plan you never execute.

⚡ 6 Quick Resources

📖 To read: Uncertainty is stressful, but here's why we need to feel it
Accepting uncertainty isn't resignation. It's recognizing that some things genuinely can't be known in advance, and that discomfort is part of making meaningful decisions.
→ Read on Psyche

💭 To keep in mind: What to do if you fail at your New Year's resolution
Most resolutions fail because they're based on controlling outcomes rather than controlling behavior. Maybe you just have to refocus on what's really in your control.
→ Read on The Conversation

📚 To check: 13 Books to Help You Survive 2026?
A curated reading list for navigating uncertainty, understanding strategy, and making sense of a world that refuses to slow down.
→ Read on POLITICO Europe

🍽️ To explore: 2026 Food Trends Predictions
From ingredient swaps to cooking methods, the trends shaping what we'll eat this year. You can't control the trends, but you can decide which ones are worth your attention.
→ Explore on Taste of Home

🌌 To watch: Astronomer Answers Cosmos Questions
Dr. Jackie Faherty answers questions about the universe, from the Big Bang to solar flares. Some of the most fascinating things are also the most beyond our control.
→ Watch on WIRED

🧠 To read: What's in our control, what's not
A deeper dive into the framework for distinguishing between what deserves your energy and what doesn't.
→ Read on Go Highbrow

🎲 This week’s wonderfully random corner of the internet 

🌌 Pixel Thoughts

A 60-second meditation tool that puts your worries into perspective. Type in what's bothering you, then watch it shrink against the vastness of the universe. Sometimes the best response to what you can't control is remembering how small it is in the grand scheme of things.

→ Breathe at pixelthoughts.co

📝 Word of the Week

Prohairesis (Greek, Stoic philosophy) - The faculty of choice; the power to decide how you respond to circumstances. In Stoic thought, it's the only thing truly within your control.

Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, taught that your prohairesis is unconquerable. Circumstances can strip you of wealth, health, relationships, and freedom, but they cannot force you to think, judge, or respond in any particular way. That choice remains yours.

The word literally breaks down to "before" (pro) and "choice" (hairesis), pointing to the moment before you act when you still have agency. Not control over outcomes, not control over other people, not control over what happened five minutes ago. Just control over this: how you meet what comes next.

🧘‍♀️ Question of the Week for Introspection

What's one thing you've been worrying about or tracking obsessively that, if you're honest with yourself, you have absolutely no power to change? And what's one thing within your actual control that you've been avoiding because it requires you to act instead of just react?

See you next Sunday! Until then, keep your eyes open, your questions big, and your sense of wonder alive.

Your curious internet friend,
Ruxandra