When The Things We Can't Control Fall Like Leaves From A Tree

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My desk sits below a window in my home. While I work, I might look out to take note of a worrisome storm, or simply enjoy the slice of clear sky visible from where I sit. I’ll spy on the towering old-growth deciduous trees surrounding my house, standing like they’re at a perpetual cocktail party, rubbing elbows, looking down on my house like it was a boxy hors d’oeuvre.

Lately, the changing season has triggered a hormone in these trees which initiates a chemical process that tells its branches to conduct a fateful severing of the leaf. The heartless voyeur that I am, I watch this entertaining process between focus periods at my computer. You know what they say — one leaf’s demise is another woman’s happiness.

As they break from their branches 80+ feet above, these leaves twirl and flutter, falling like a ballad through the air. They tell a story both grand and realistic — this is life, life is beauty, beauty is poetry, poetry is the story of a dance through the air to the ground where everything will eventually land — leaf, animal, mountain.

But the story doesn’t end on the ground. The story is a cycle that continues in the tree, where energy conservation preserves enough capacity to survive the winter. The leaves are too costly to bear during hard times — November to March around here.

The tree is smart. It does what it needs to do to live well. The tree knows what it can control, and it executes that flawlessly.

I can learn from the tree.

Sometimes I forget what is within my circle of control.

I don’t have to be a scholar of Stoicism or an expert in behavioral science to understand there are options for action and the rest is out of reach. The tree will never have this knowledge. But the tree has simple hormones to define its boundaries of control. I have a complex brain that muddles the lines.

It’s not easy to recognize I have the option to let go of a false sense of control and embrace acceptance of the situation. Maybe Covid trained us a bit in that regard. We had to stay sheltered at the beginning of the outbreak, so we had only one choice of action — accept it and do what we could.

Were any of us able to resolve the situation back then? No. The biggest effort, which was huge, was to develop a vaccine. For most of us, that was out of our circle of control. But we did control many things. We stayed sheltered. We wore masks. We learned how to use good ole Zoom. Plus, don’t forget all that outdoor patio socializing. Did we control Covid? No. Did we influence it? Absolutely.

I often point to my lovely neighbor who once said to me, “Stephanie, what can you do about it?” This regarded a conversation about world affairs that many were riled up about. She didn’t ask the question as if to suggest quitting or giving up, but to invite me to take inventory and reassess. What could I do about it?

Unfortunately, that question doesn’t live in a world of scarcity. We have plenty of opportunities to ask that question. There was that awful earthquake in Turkey. There’s the war in Ukraine. We have all manner of natural disasters, economic woes, political conflicts, and now bombings in the Middle East. These events can be the best teachers if we let them. When we realize how small our influence is on complex situations, we immediately see things we can do, like autumnal leaves of wisdom falling from the sky.

I read a story recently that described the British author’s personal connection to the horror over in Israel. Discussion abounds out there over this unfortunate news. Lots of worry and anger over what should be done or what hasn’t been done. The only person I know in my little circle of friends who has a connection to this situation is this author who has family directly involved.

What can she do? Can she fly over there and take up a rocket launcher? Can she show up at the UN Security Council and ask for a vote? Neither of these. Instead, she can support her family at this time — by writing, calling, or offering help. She can pray or meditate. She can offer help to those affected. Which she is doing.

Can I do any of this? I can do some of it.

Once I accept that, then suddenly I can settle some of my anger and worry, and consider my options for how to support and where to give it. If not for this situation, then somewhere else at another time. There will always be opportunities because there will always be difficulty, which is something to accept, too. This is how deep the truth of our circle of control lies.

But war isn't the only thing we'd like to control. There are endless small bits.

My schedule is getting fuller lately, so I fret over whether I’ll get everything done. My circle of control is to employ the tools I have in my pocket to manage time and emotion most effectively. I can take up self-compassion when I feel overwhelmed and remember that the present moment can only accommodate what it can hold. If I focus on the now without fretting, I’ll focus better.

What we really want underneath all the anger and fretting is to control the unknown. The unknown comes in endless forms — facing a new job or role at work, giving birth, starting high school or college, dealing with loss, or coping with insecurity. The alluring mirage is that the outcome of these situations can be knowable because of their proximity to us. Yet, just as with any world problem, our future is unknowable.

So, I can remember the tree. Its most important task is to stay alive in the winter. It employs its leaf-shedding method, no questions asked. Perhaps my questions are the problem. What if? How come? Why me?

If I shed those questions like the costly leaves they are, maybe I’ll have my own method to fortify myself during hard times or even just iffy times. I’ll focus instead on diverting resources to what I can do about what needs to be done.

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Hope you're well, friends.