Are We Really in Control of Our Lives?

Some mornings, I wake up and believe the day is mine.

I stretch. I make my coffee. I review what needs to be done and decide what I will allow in and what I will not. For a brief moment, I feel like a sovereign entity. A being endowed with agency. A creature with direction.

And yet—how delicate that illusion is.

One text message, one unexpected task, one unconscious pattern—and I’m no longer steering. I’m reacting. Executing. Performing. Like a reflex. Like a machine with a face.

That’s when the old question returns:
Am I really in control of my life… or am I just following a script I never wrote?

I. The Program Begins Early

We are not born free, not in the sense we imagine.

Before we ever form a conscious memory, we’ve already been shaped—by the voices that soothe or ignore us, the rooms we sleep in, the warmth or coldness of our caretakers, the language we inherit before we know what it means.

We do not choose our name. We do not choose the beliefs whispered in lullabies, the fears that hide in silence, or the subtle messages baked into the smiles and scoldings of early life.

And still, we grow—thinking ourselves autonomous.

But what does that even mean?

If your taste in food, music, lovers, clothing, friends, books—even your sense of what’s “beautiful”—was largely programmed by repetition and exposure…

Then what exactly did you choose?

II. The Elegant Machinery of Habit

The older I get, the more I see: we are creatures of habit, not intention.

We wake up and follow routines as if pulled by invisible strings. We reach for the same mug. The same breakfast. The same apps. The same thoughts.

Not because we choose them every morning. But because we once did—and now the choice is fossilized.

The mind likes repetition. It saves energy. But what’s efficient isn’t always what’s true.

I’ve watched myself walk through entire weeks in a state of low-grade trance. Saying the same polite words, performing the same roles, meeting expectations like someone following directions from a manual they forgot they were handed.

Sometimes I wonder: How much of my life is me, and how much is just momentum?

III. The Paradox of Modern Freedom

We live in a time obsessed with personal freedom. You can order anything, stream anything, date anyone, reinvent yourself as often as you like.

But maybe that is part of the trap.

Because the more options we have, the more we are led to believe we’re choosing.
And the more we believe we’re choosing, the less likely we are to question what’s driving the choice.

Capitalism, for instance, gives you hundreds of toothpaste brands and says: “See? You’re free.”
But try quitting your job tomorrow and see how free you feel.
Try saying “no” to your phone for a week.
Try living a day without performing.

The cage is not always locked. But the door is so well camouflaged, you forget it’s there.

IV. The Myth of the Self-Made Human

We love the story of the self-made man or woman.
We celebrate those who pulled themselves “up by the bootstraps.”
We worship “visionaries” and “disruptors” and “mavericks.”

But look closer. No one is self-made.

We are all built of borrowed bricks:
Genetics. Geography. Family. Trauma. Teachers. Luck.
Even our most rebellious choices are shaped by the systems we resist.

You didn’t choose your nervous system. You didn’t choose to be born in a war zone—or a suburb.
You didn’t choose to meet that person at that party on that night.
You didn’t choose what wounds made you distrust love—or what hopes made you chase it.

Yes, you responded. But you didn’t design the chessboard.
And you didn’t pick your first move.

V. The Spaces Where Choice Lives

If we are not completely in control, then are we completely powerless?

No. And that’s where it gets interesting.

Because while you may not have chosen your programming, you can become aware of it.
You can watch it. Name it. Interrupt it.

There is a moment, however brief, between stimulus and response. A sacred pause. A breath.
In that breath lives the beginning of freedom.

You feel anger rise—do you react? Or inquire?

You feel lonely—do you scroll? Or sit with the ache?

You feel uncertain—do you run toward distraction? Or lean into the unknown?

This is not dramatic. No one will applaud.
But this is where real control begins—not with grand gestures, but with small, conscious ruptures in the algorithm.

VI. Not the Pilot, But the Editor

Maybe we are not authors of our lives in the way we hope.

Maybe we are not gods forging destinies—but editors refining paragraphs.
Not architects of pure will—but gardeners of circumstance.

We inherit a story—but we can revise it.

We inherit a culture—but we can question it.

We inherit fears—but we can transform them into wisdom.

Control is not total. But it is not absent either.
It flickers in the way you treat a stranger.
It lives in whether you apologize or justify.
It hides in your silence—and whether you fill it or listen to it.

VII. The Cost of Sleepwalking

A life without inquiry becomes a performance without soul.

You wake. You work. You consume. You complain. You retire. You die.
And someday, someone writes your eulogy: “They were nice. They were responsible. They always showed up on time.”

But did you ever show up for yourself?

Did you ever pause and ask: Who is living this life? Me—or a version of me designed to fit in?

The tragedy is not in losing control.
The tragedy is never knowing you had any to begin with.

VIII. The Quiet Revolution

So no, we are not fully in control of our lives.

But we can be more aware of what controls us.
We can stop outsourcing our values to algorithms.
We can stop calling obligation “purpose.”
We can stop mistaking routine for identity.

And we can begin—gently, patiently, imperfectly—to turn inward.
Not to find answers right away, but to remember the question:

Am I truly choosing… or just complying?

That question alone is a revolution.
Ask it often.
Let it guide you to discomfort.
Let it burn away illusion.

And in that raw space—uncomfortable, unclear—you may finally begin to live not as a machine, not as a puppet, but as a being.

Still shaped. Still flawed. Still limited.
But alive.

And that, I suspect, is enough.