You Have More Control Than You Think

Take Charge of What You Can

The essay below is written by one of my new favorite authors, Joan Westenberg. She’s here: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/author/joan/

+

Your World Is Burning. Here's What You Can Actually Do About It

Everything hurts right now.

You open your phone. War. Collapse. Crisis. Corruption. Some days, it feels like watching the world burn down to ash in real-time.

The weight of powerlessness settles in.

The crush of too much information, too little agency.

The vertigo of trying to find solid ground in shifting sand.

But powerlessness is a lie we tell ourselves.

Your circle of control exists. It’s real. Not as a motivational concept or a bullshit management framework but as the basic building block of action.

You control more than you think:

- How you spend the next hour

- Where you direct your energy

- The problems you choose to solve

- Who you help

- What you build

- When you act

- Why you move

+

Notice what’s missing from that list: Other people. Markets. Systems. Politics. The vast machinery of the world that occupies so much mental space.

This isn’t about retreating from those realities. It’s about recognizing where real leverage exists.

The truth is brutal but liberating: The only way to deal with a world on fire is to focus on putting out the flames you can actually reach.

Not because it’s all you deserve. Not because it’s all you’re capable of. But because it’s where real impact happens while everyone else is paralyzed by the spectacle of collapse.

You can doomscroll, or you can create.

You can rant, or you can build.

You can theorize, or you can act.

You can wish, or you can work.

The world is burning whether you watch it, read about it, spiral over it - or not.

But in your circle of control, you can build something that matters.

Something real.

Something that helps.

+

Real power lives in the granular. It’s in the newsletter you publish about local issues nobody else covers. It’s in the mutual aid network you start with three neighbors that grows to thirty.

It’s in the skill-sharing workshops you organize in your garage. It’s in the community garden you plant in the abandoned lot. It’s in the tech support hours you offer seniors at the local library.

It’s in the tools and knowledge you share without waiting for permission or platforms. Small actions, multiplied by consistency, backed by a commitment to a specific place and specific people.

It’s in your circle of control.

Start there.

The rest is noise.