One of the most widespread myths in management is that which is called “self-control”. Everywhere you go throughout the corporate world, you’ll hear that self-control and self-discipline are two of the “highest” virtues we have at our disposal – virtues that should be cherished, nurtured and rewarded. The corporate world frowns upon these individuals who lose control of themselves by say, throwing temper tantrums, and elevates these controlled, calm and collected executives who amble around unfazed in the midst of one crisis after another. It has even invented a new term to describe them – such executives are said to be “cool”.

Psychologists add their support to this pervasive myth. They proclaim that emotionally intelligent people score high on self-control and are said to be perceived by others as being less impatient, more willing to share ideas and less likely to be involved in conflict. Emotionally unintelligent people, on the other hand, are said to be unable to control their emotions or alternatively, are guilty of over-controlling them. They are said to have failed to “manage their emotions”.

What utter nonsense! Every time I come across such drivel, I wonder if their originators, and some of them are indeed world-famous names, have given much thought to what they are advocating or are they simply hopping onto the latest bandwagon. Can I control myself? We owe it to J. Krishnamurti for having demonstrated with force the fallacy of this question. He spent much of his life asking himself and others something simple: Is the controller inside us any different from the thing he or she is trying to control? In other words, when we say to ourselves, “I must control my anger” or “I shall not be afraid of public speaking”, do we see clearly that we’ve assumed that there are two people inside us and that these two are different from each other – the one who is angry or afraid, and the other, who wishes to control him or her? Are they really different? Do we see clearly too the conflict present in us as these two opposing forces fight one another?

What then is needed to escape from this vicious circle? First and foremost, we must see clearly the ding-dong battle between these two conflicting forces inside us – between that what we are and what we would like to become. Secondly, we must ask ourselves whether this entity who is attempting to control the other has any reality at all. If we agree that both entities are indeed the products of our same conditioned minds, we need to realize next that we cannot escape into the opposite – we cannot control ourselves. Finally, if we cannot escape into attempting to control our anger or fears, then with our energies intact, we can now watch unconditionally how they come into being. As we watch, we can find out why they happen, when, for how long, and so on. We can get to know our thoughts and emotions only by seeing them in action. We cannot do so if we escape into their opposite by controlling, suppressing, ignoring, justifying, rationalizing or condemning them!

From the day that we are born, we are always controlling ourselves – the “must”, “must not”, “should”, “should not”. The ding-dong battle rages on. Control implies conflict and conflict implies waste of energy. This does not mean we should lose all control – that would be too childish. On the contrary: it means that by letting whatever it is we are attempting to control ‘flower’ inside us. As it does, we are able to understand it in full and it is this very understanding that is the end of it.

<B>Eric Charoux

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