Control The Controllables
Jan 2023
Written as a guest post for the Urban Commuter Blog.
The environment, other people, and unknown variables are usually outside our control. When we find ourselves in unfamiliar situations or new locations, the instinctive response is to impose order on the chaos. We try to assert control so we can feel grounded, believing that control will reduce the risk created by uncertainty. In reality, the harder we try to control everything, the less we listen to what the environment is telling us. When that happens, we stop seeing the solutions that are already there.
The absence of control creates discomfort. It amplifies perceived risk, increases frustration, and often leads to rushed or brittle decisions that fail under pressure. Yet despite knowing we cannot control everything, we keep trying. We confuse activity with effectiveness and control with safety.
Chaos rules. Trying to control everything results in controlling nothing. This is why developing the situation matters. As a href="https://www.peteblaber.com/">Pete Blaber puts it in The Common Sense Way, pay attention to what’s happening around you, keep a low profile, and apply common sense. Focus on what you can control and deliberately let go of the rest. The goal is not zero risk, but controlled risk.
Mountain climbing is a useful analogy. The mountain determines how dangerous the climb will be and whether the summit is even possible. Weather can shift without warning and turn a manageable ascent into a lethal one. Altitude, temperature, falling rock, and oxygen deprivation compound quickly. High alpine terrain is unforgiving, and most of its risks are outside human control.
Yet climbers still succeed. They do so by controlling what they can. Training prepares the body and mind for sustained effort. Physical conditioning increases endurance and reduces the margin for failure. Learning to read the weather, both from forecasts and on the ground, gives insight into whether a window to climb exists at all. Approach, pacing, load, and speed are all choices. None of these remove risk, but together they reduce exposure to an environment that cannot be controlled.
Outcomes are dictated by approach. Focusing on how you engage a situation is what creates leverage. That focus has to be paired with an honest acceptance that not everything can be managed. Comfort with that mental, and sometimes physical, discomfort is a skill that must be practiced.
Control the controllables. Start close in. The innermost layer is you. Your preparation, your mindset, your tools, your readiness. This is where effort pays the highest dividends and where early work should be done. The next layer is the immediate environment. People, terrain, context. You cannot control this layer, but you can study it, interpret it, and adapt to it. By working problems in the inner layer, you shape how this outer layer affects you.
Beyond that is the external perimeter. This is where chaos dominates and prediction breaks down. Operating there requires deep preparation, broad experience, and comfort under stress. Success in that space is not built there. It is built through disciplined work closer in.
Control the controllables. Let go of the rest. Focus on developing the situation.
Gear for a small project: Spartan9 Street Satchel MKI, iPad Air, Surefire Backup light, Tornek Rayville TR-660 watch, entry/E&E kit, folding knife.