Control is a funny thing.

You feel like it’s the thing that will prevent you from being hurt.

Will help ensure you get everything you’re wanting.

To give up control is to give up your handle on how your life goes and cast yourself onto the sea of every whim and fancy.

Surely this can’t be good?

I want to suggest that’s not true.

Instead I want to recommend you lose it.

Quit trying to determine how things go and what your life or relationships look like.

Not completely.

Just a little bit.

Lose control just enough to open yourself up to the realization that you can’t really control things anyway.

You can’t make sure you never get hurt by your partner.

You can’t guarantee you’ll never hurt them in return.

You can’t control whether they keep on loving you

Keep meeting your needs.

You can’t control whether they do anything you feel is so important to being in love and having a meaningful connection.

They could get hit by a bus tomorrow and be gone.

So could you.

You just can’t control what you can’t control.

If you’re not in a relationship this still applies to you.

You may not have a relationship you want to control, but you also don’t have control over whether you end up in one.

You may think you can control this by deciding you won’t pursue a relationship.

But how can you be sure you won’t meet someone tomorrow who completely steals your heart?

That person could be one conversation away.

One social event.

One online encounter.

I recently watched the movie Serendipity.

John Cusack’s and Kate Beckensales’s characters encounter each other in a chance meeting in New York.

Beckensale’s character guides Cusack’s character to set up a test to determine if they are meant to be together.

As the story unfolds random occurrences lead eventually to their being reunited.

While a far fetched romantic theme, the central point is not. Serendipity is real.

Chance occurrences in life that change your world forever.

You have them.

All the time.

Usually you just don’t recognize them.

Because you aren’t really open to them.

Looking for them.

You’re afraid if you lose it, you’ll end up lost forever.

As you know I’m a pretty rational guy.

As a Myers-Briggs INTJ I like to systematize everything.

I believe you can understand romantic love and configure your love life to experience the richness of this most meaningful of relationships, while avoiding a lot of the negatives that most other people encounter.

In other words I believe you can control your love life, much more than you’ve been told you can.

What I’m saying in this post doesn’t contradict that.

Which is why when I said you should open up to losing it…losing control, I told you “just a little bit.”

I’m not naive enough to believe you can completely determine where your loves and life will lead.

Which is why I describe my view of polyamory as “being open” to romantic love with anyone.

I think you should keep your heart open to love. Because you just don’t know where it might find you.

By trying to maintain control you are impeding the process.

Let me finish by giving you an INTJ’s spin on serendipity itself.

Because I believe you have some control over whether serendipity actually happens to you.

You do this by getting “out there.”

Putting yourself in circumstances where serendipity can happen.

Be social and attend events instead of cocooning in your room.

Make time for social media and really interact.

Share your sense of humor by commenting and contributing to the online conversation.

Take an interest in those around you and speak to people everywhere.

Seek out people who share your interests.

Give them a chance to encounter you.

If you actively put yourself in the path of serendipity?

You’ll be surprised by what will happen.

You will have set up the circumstances in a very deliberate controlling way, to lose control and have good things “just happen” to you.

One spark can light a flame that consumes a forest.

One encounter could change you life forever.

What do you think? Isn’t it time you lose it “just a little?”