Intelligent Control of One’s Life

It is very correct that I have both extrinsic and intrinsic goods. And I do not mind listing them for you to understand. The heart of kindness, love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control which I consider the fruit of the spirit. Sports, meeting people, dancing, singing, trying new things, and traveling; all these I consider my intrinsic goods. On the other hand, my extrinsic goods are all-encompassing in solving problems.

However, this is not to say that both are not necessary or important. As a fact, some of these goods are interconnected and can exist in either of the goods.

Now, it is okay to say that I possess these goods but also bare in mind that I am still struggling with some of them; hence, the reason why I need to take absolute and intelligent control of my life.

My understanding of the topic “Intelligent Control of One’s Life” is that although your will attracts you to what it perceives as good, the intelligence that man possesses over animals will better educate you or aid the reasoning ability to differentiate what is good for you or not.

Having said that, the case “Letter to Almudena” made me see how grateful and privileged I am. I read in the case of how God had been faithful to them. The father of Almudena reviewed his life and realized the continuous blessings from God. He was happy for health, work, joy, faith, and his children which I can tell that they are both extrinsic and intrinsic goods. However, he saw the need to do more with life and the goods he possessed. He used what he had to get what he didn’t have by adopting Almudena who suffered from psychomotor retardation. He realized he could love deeply and his faith had been made stronger. So, I see here that, it is good to have good health but how have you used your good health to impact people? This was what Almudena’s father answered.

Moving on, for me, self-control has been a big deal and as much as it is an intrinsic good, I also struggle with it. What I did was to learn from the Holy Book because I find solace in the word “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Over time, I have intelligently controlled my life with this word and I can say for a fact that I am better at controlling my life. I have come to realize that life is a gift, the better you make intelligent use of it the longer and happier you get.

There’s also the issue of procrastination – “I will do it later” and “I still have some days to go” – this here are the things that make me delay tasks and in turn miss deadlines when the tasks cannot be met in due time.  Will I say it is bad? Not exactly because research has it that everyone procrastinates on their level, the difference is in how you can control the habit and put it to good use.

The TedTalk video “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”, by Tim Urban summarizes this bad habit with the 3 actors in the procrastination process. The rational decision maker, whilst we are expected as humans to hand over decisions to the rational decision maker, the instant gratification monkey is always around to convince us otherwise and propose delays and equally causing distractions, the panic monster then comes in when the deadline is approaching to redirect the rational decision maker to the right track and quickly do the right thing required. He concluded by saying since every human somewhat possesses this habit, the human relationship decides whether it is a toxic trait or not.

So, I have tried to be in control of this aspect of my life. what I do now is, organize my day by keeping schedules and crossing out achieved tasks. This helps me be in check at all times.

In conclusion, Ayse Birsel’s “If your life is your biggest project, why not design it”? says, there’s no right or wrong as we are prone to make mistakes in life and we are expected to move fast from them. Nonetheless, having your voice whilst fearlessly pursuing your things is to have intelligent control of your life.