The journey from exhausting control to peaceful connection.

I used to think my job was to fix things. Let me tell you, it was a heavy load to carry. I believed I had to fix myself—my worries, the mistakes I made, the parts I wished were different. I believed I had to fix other people, too. When a friend was sad, I had to find the exact right words to make them smile again. When someone in my family had trouble, I needed to be the one to solve it. Messy situations and awkward conversations felt like puzzles I was supposed to piece together. You name it, I saw it as something that needed my tools, my effort, my repair.

Deep down, I was sure a good life was like a perfect machine. I figured if I just worked hard enough—tweaking my habits, adjusting my attitude, patching up moods—I could get everything running without a hitch. I told myself this constant adjusting was just what a responsible person does. But my friend, it wore me out. It left me with a tired that sleep couldn’t touch.

Now I see my old way was a sort of blindness. I was so busy looking for what was broken. I was always checking for cracks and flaws. In all that hunting for problems, I failed to notice what was already whole. I missed the good moments that were fine just as they were. I missed the beauty in the imperfect, messy, real stuff of life.

This big shift inside me—from a "fixing" mindset to a "loving" mindset—didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow thaw, like ice melting in the spring sun. It was a gradual exchange: I laid down my heavy wrench of solutions, and I learned to simply hold out an open hand. This shift changed everything. It changed my own peace. It changed my relationships. It changed the way I move through the world.

Maybe you know this feeling. Maybe you feel the weariness of trying to repair things all the time. We live in a world that shouts "just fix it!" But what if we tried another way?

If you're tired of carrying that weight, this path might speak to you.

The Exhausting Illusion of Control

I bet you know the feeling. It’s that belief that if we just push hard enough, we can steer everything. I lived by that rule for years. I thought I could manage my day, my emotions, even other people’s troubles if I was just clever enough or diligent enough. I was convinced my worry and my planning were tools to keep life predictable and calm.

But here’s what I found out, and maybe you’ve sensed it too: it’s a mirage. It’s a trick our minds play on us. We spot a problem and think, "I can handle this." We feel uneasy and think, "I should be able to make this stop." Our world tells us we can. There’s a five-step plan for everything, a life hack for every anxiety.

We do this to our inner lives every single day. Feeling stressed? Fix it with this technique. Feeling insecure? Fix it with that podcast. It sounds useful, doesn’t it? But underneath it is a painful message. It whispers that the person you are right now isn't right. It says you are a project that needs endless work.

I made myself my main project. I tried to fix my focus, then my sleep, then my routines. With other people, I was no different. A friend would share a struggle, and I wouldn’t simply listen. I’d start fixing. I’d offer advice they never asked for. I’d try to solve their hurt just to settle my own worry for them. I thought I was being helpful. I thought that was love.

The outcome was that I was perpetually drained. I felt like I was trying to hold back the sea with my own two hands. People don’t enjoy being fixed. Feelings don’t like to be solved. My craving for control left me irritated and isolated. I was wrestling with reality, and reality always wins.

Here is the plain truth I had to meet: We don’t have control. We have influence. We can influence what we do. We can influence the effort we make. But we cannot control other people’s hearts. We cannot control life’s unexpected turns. You can’t fix someone else’s sadness. You can’t fix a rainy day. You can’t fix what’s already happened.

Trying to is utterly draining. It’s like trying to stop a river from flowing. You’ll spend all your strength, and the river will just keep on going. We wear ourselves out fighting what we can’t change. We think we’re the director of the play, but we’re really just an actor on the stage, learning our lines as we go.

What if we set that heavy job down? What if our real task isn’t to control the river, but to learn how to be in it, to feel its current, and to stop fighting the water?

What Are We Really Trying to Fix?

This is the quiet question that finally made me stop. In all my busy fixing—working on myself, adjusting others, tidying up messy feelings—I never asked it. I just followed the impulse: something is broken, so I must mend it. It felt like my duty. It even felt like love. But when I grew too tired to lift another tool, I had to sit with the real question. What am I actually doing here? What is this really about?

The honest answers caught me off guard. I had to look past the good excuses, the "I'm just being helpful" story. Underneath, I found more tender, human reasons.

So often, I was trying to fix my own worry. Seeing someone I care about in pain is difficult. It makes my chest feel tight and uneasy. When I jumped in with advice or quick solutions, I wasn’t always starting from their need. I was often starting from my own. I was trying to make my own uncomfortable feeling go away. If I could "fix" their situation, then I could feel calm again. My fixing was a way to manage my own nerves.

Other times, I was trying to fix my sense of being enough. Being the "go-to" problem-solver made me feel important and useful. It gave me a part to play. If I could fix things, I mattered. If I couldn’t, I felt worthless. My value got tangled up in my ability to have the answers. You can see how fragile that is, can’t you? It means your peace depends on fixing things you might not even control.

And this one was tough to admit: I sometimes thought fixing was the same as loving. I really believed that if I loved someone, I should help them be better, avoid hurt, and improve their life. My love came with a quiet instruction manual. I thought my ideas were helpful gifts. But a gift that says "you should be different" doesn’t feel like love. It feels like a demand.

Let’s sit with this for a moment. The next time you feel that pull to fix something or someone, just pause. Ask yourself gently:

• Is this about their struggle, or is it about my own comfort?

• Do I feel like I'm responsible for how this turns out?

• Does my help come with a hope for a specific outcome?

We all do this. We fix because we care, but also because we’re human. We get scared. We feel insecure. We’re afraid of messy, unhappy feelings—in others and in ourselves. Fixing is our way of trying to build a neat path through an overgrown forest. It’s our attempt to control the uncontrollable.

But here is what I found out: When we fix from these hidden places—from our worry, our need to be needed, our love with strings attached—the other person feels it. They may not say it, but they feel it. They feel the weight of your hope for them to change. They sense that your full acceptance has a limit. They hear the quiet message underneath all your well-meaning words: "The way you are right now is a problem for me."

Think about that. "The way you are right now is a problem for me." Isn’t that a lonely thing to hear? Whether we’re saying it to a friend, a partner, or to our own heart, it builds a wall. It creates distance instead of closeness. It says, "Let me know when you’re better."

Real love doesn’t say that. Love says, "I see you’re not okay. I am here with you while you’re not okay." That was my turning point. I saw that if I wanted true connection, I had to be willing to put down my tools and just be present. Not to fix what is, but to be with what is.

The High Cost of the Fixer Mentality

Living as a full-time fixer carries a steep price. I paid it for years without even realizing what I was spending. We think of our fixing as a sort of helpfulness, a tax we pay for being good people who care. But we rarely stop to look at the bill. It’s paid in our peace, our friendships, and our joy. Let’s talk honestly about what this really costs.

First, it burns you right out. Picture it like this: you’re carrying an invisible backpack. Every single day, you drop stones into it. A friend’s worry? That’s a stone. Your own mistake at work? Another stone. A family member’s struggle? A bigger stone. Your mind never gets to rest because it’s always weighing the problems, plotting the solutions. I lived with a constant, low hum of tiredness that sleep couldn’t fix. I was always “on,” always scanning for the next thing to set right. The cost is a deep fatigue in your heart and your body. You end up tired all the time because you are carrying weights that were never yours alone to carry.

Second, it hurts your relationships. This one was the hardest for me to see. I thought my fixing was a form of love. I believed my advice and solutions showed how deeply I cared. But here is the truth I learned the hard way: No one wants to feel like a project. When you are always in fixer mode, you aren’t really connecting with the person in front of you. You are managing their case. You take away their power to feel their own feelings and solve their own problems. The quiet message you send is: “You can’t handle this alone.”

I lost real closeness because of this. People began to share less with me. They didn’t want my solutions; they just wanted me to hear them. But I was too busy being a mechanic to be a friend. They felt judged, not joined. They felt like a problem to be solved, not a person to be loved. We have to ask ourselves: Is this connection, or is it just correction?

Finally, and maybe most sadly, it makes you miss your own life. This is the quietest cost. When your main job is finding what’s wrong, you are always hunting for the next crack. You live in the future, planning the repair, or in the past, regretting what you didn’t fix. But you are almost never right here, right now. I realized I was missing the good stuff—the stuff that wasn’t broken at all.

I would be playing with my kids but mentally rewriting a tough conversation I’d had earlier. I’d be at a beautiful park, thinking about how to “fix” my friend’s dating life. I was so busy being the manager of everything that I forgot to be the person living it. The present moment—the only place where life actually happens—became a checklist of repairs instead of an experience to be had.

We take on this fixer role hoping it will make life safer and calmer. We think if we can just solve enough, we will earn a smooth, happy life. But the funny, sad secret is that the fixing becomes the problem. It drains your energy, pushes people away, and blinds you to the simple good things happening right in front of you.

You trade the real, messy, beautiful story of your life for a never-ending manual on repairs. It is a terribly high price to pay.

Swap Judgment for Curiosity

So, if this fixing habit is so tiring and hurts our connections, how do we stop? I knew my way wasn't working, but the idea of just not fixing felt frightening. It felt like I was giving up on people I loved. If I wasn't going to fix things, what was I supposed to do instead? Just stand there and do nothing?

The first real answer I found is this: Swap your judgment for curiosity. This was my first step onto a new path. It sounds simple, but it changes everything.

Let me explain what I mean. The fixing mindset starts with a quick judgment. It's a fast, quiet sentence in your mind: This is wrong. This is broken. This shouldn't be this way. That judgment—whether it’s about your own bad day or your friend’s life choice—is what pushes you to grab your tools. You see a problem, you judge it as bad, and you jump in to repair it.

Curiosity is different. It doesn't start with "This is bad." It starts with "I wonder..." It is a question, not a verdict.

For me, this meant practicing a new way of talking to myself. It felt clumsy at first. When I felt that old, familiar urge to fix something, I would try to take a tiny pause. Just one breath. In that pause, I would try to change the sentence in my head.

• Instead of thinking, "I'm so lazy for still being in bed," I would try, "I wonder why I feel so tired today."

• Instead of seeing my partner's quiet mood as a problem to solve, I'd think, "I wonder what their day was like."

• Instead of judging my friend's repeated relationship trouble, I'd think, "I wonder what she is hoping to find."

You can try this. Right now, today. The next time you feel that pull to fix or correct, see if you can notice it. That split second between feeling the urge and acting on it is your chance. In that small space, try to trade the judgment for a question.

Here’s what it can look like in real life:

• Judgment says: "They are so wrong for feeling that way."
  Curiosity says: "I wonder what’s making them feel that way."
• Judgment says: "My anxiety is a sign I’m weak."
  Curiosity says: "I wonder what my anxiety is trying to protect me from."
• Judgment says: "This messy situation is a disaster."
  Curiosity says: "I wonder how this situation got started."

Why does this small shift help so much? Because judgment is like closing a door. It slams shut. It says, "I know what this is, and it's bad." Curiosity is like opening a door. It says, "I don't fully understand this yet. Let me see."

When you are curious with yourself, you stop fighting yourself. You become kinder. You don't see your sadness as a breakdown to fix; you see it as a signpost to understand. When you are curious with others, you give them a gift. You give them room to breathe and explain. You aren't there to tell them they're wrong; you're there to try and see their world through their eyes.

We are so used to judging. It feels quick and strong. Curiosity feels slower and softer. It takes practice. This isn't a trick to become a better fixer. This is about becoming a better friend—to yourself and to others. It moves you from standing over a problem with a tool in your hand, to sitting next to someone and simply asking, "Tell me more."

This one step changed my days. It didn't make all the hard things go away. But it took away the extra suffering I was adding with my own judgment. The constant noise in my head got quieter. I started to learn real things about the people I love, things I was too busy judging before to ever notice. It was the first, and most important, step in learning how to hold an open hand instead of a heavy wrench.

Loving the Un-fixable: It’s a Practice

Understanding that we should swap fixing for loving is one thing. Actually living that way is something else entirely. This is where the real work begins. I want to be clear with you: this shift is not a finish line you cross. You don't wake up one morning and suddenly love all the hard, messy things perfectly.

This is a practice. Think of it like learning to play a song on the guitar. You don't get it right the first time. You practice it daily. Some days your fingers find the chords easily. Other days, you fumble. Loving the un-fixable is just like that. It is the daily choice to put down your tools and just show up with an open heart. Some days, I am good at it. Other days, I forget everything and go back to my old fixing ways. And that’s okay. The practice is in gently starting again.

So what does this practice look like in real life? Let’s talk about three places we can practice it: with ourselves, with others, and with life itself.

Practicing with Yourself: This is where it all starts. You can't be patient with others if you are cruel to yourself. For me, this meant changing the voice in my head. My old fixing voice was a harsh coach: “You messed up again! Fix it! Do better!” The practice of loving myself sounds more like a kind friend: “Oh, that hurt. It's okay to feel bad about it. What do you need right now?”

I am learning to meet my own flaws not as enemies, but as parts of me that are asking for care. It is treating myself like I would treat a good friend who is having a hard day. I don't yell at them to “snap out of it.” I might just sit with them, or make them a cup of tea. It’s that kind of simple, gentle attention.

Practicing with Others: This is often the hardest test. It means letting go of controlling someone else’s path. The practice here is called being with. When someone you love is suffering—from sadness, from a bad choice, from fear—your job is not to pull them out of their hole. Your job is to climb down into the hole with them, or at least sit at the edge and let them know they are not alone.

You practice biting your tongue when you want to give advice. Instead, you practice saying, “That sounds so difficult. I’m right here.” Your quiet presence, without any solutions, is a powerful gift. It says, “I love you even when you are not okay. I love you in the mess.” This builds a trust that lasts much longer than any quick fix.

Practicing with Life: Finally, we practice on life itself—on the things we absolutely cannot change. This is about making peace with the weather, both outside and inside your heart. Some days are sunny. Some days are stormy with disappointment, frustration, or plain bad luck.

You don't fix a storm. You don't shout at the rain to stop. You find shelter. You put on a coat. You wait for it to pass. The practice is accepting what is, without fighting it. We practice saying, “Okay, it’s raining today,” instead of, “Why is it raining? This is terrible!” It doesn't mean you have to like the rain. It just means you stop wasting your energy being angry at the sky. You might even notice how green the grass looks afterwards.

This practice of loving the un-fixable slowly changes how you live. We stop seeing life as a list of problems. We start experiencing it as a series of moments, some easy and some hard, all to be met as they are.

The goal is not a life without struggle. That’s impossible. The goal is to change how you face struggle. To see it not as a sign that something is broken, but as a sign that you are human, that you care, and that you are strong enough to hold it—not with tools, but with love.

I still forget this all the time. Just yesterday, I started mentally fixing a friend’s problem before I even finished listening. But I caught myself. I took a breath. I came back to just listening. The practice is in the catching. It’s in the gentle return.

Every time you choose love over fixing, you build a new kind of strength. You build a life not on the shaky ground of control, but on the solid, peaceful ground of acceptance. And that is a practice worth doing, one slow, gentle day at a time.

The Journey from Technician to Companion

When I look back at who I used to be, I see a tired technician. I had my mental toolbox, my list of fixes, and my blueprints for a better life. I saw my world as a machine—my feelings, my relationships, my days—all systems to tune and problems to solve. I worked on everything, even the people I loved. I thought that was my job. But a technician stands apart from the machine. They are never really part of it. And that left me feeling very alone.

You might know this feeling. That sense of distance, even when you’re trying so hard to help. The quiet worry that if you don't fix things, everything will fall apart. We often start here, as technicians, because it feels strong and smart. But it costs us real connection.

The change from fixing to loving is really a change in who we are. It’s slowly taking off the technician’s uniform—with all its heavy tools—and stepping into a simpler, softer role: the companion.

What does that mean?

A technician works on things. A companion sits with people.

A technician asks, “What’s broken here?”

A companion asks, “What’s this like for you?”

A technician uses tools. A companion uses presence.

This change has reshaped my life. As a technician, my love had a hidden goal. It said, “I’ll help you so you can be better.” As a companion, my love has no goal. It just says, “I am here with you, as you are.”

We practice this in small, everyday moments. It’s hearing your partner’s bad day and just hugging them instead of listing solutions. It’s feeling your own sadness and saying, “It’s okay to sit with this for a while,” instead of trying to force it away. It’s looking at a plan that failed and thinking, “Well, this is where we are,” instead of frantically trying to rebuild it.

The technician in me isn’t gone. I still hear that first, old instinct to take over and repair. But now, I see it as a choice. I can feel that urge and pause. I can ask myself the most important question: “Does this moment need fixing, or does it need loving?”

Nine times out of ten, it needs loving.

Fixing might change a situation, but loving changes us. It changes how we feel inside. It changes how we are with each other. Love creates a safe space where healing and growth can happen on their own, without anyone forcing it.

This is our new path. We are putting down the heavy toolbox. We are leaving the lonely workshop behind. We are walking out onto the shared road as companions.

You don't have to be perfect at this. I am not. Some days I forget. Some days I pick up the old tools. But now I know how to put them down again. This isn't about being the best. It's about moving in a new direction. Every time you choose to listen instead of advise, every time you offer a quiet “me too” instead of a loud “you should,” you are walking this path.

So start small. Start today. The next time you feel that old tug to fix—a person, a feeling, your own heart—just pause. Breathe. See if you can offer your simple presence instead of a perfect plan.

You might find that nothing was ever really broken. You might find that what’s in front of you isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s just a human moment, fragile and real. And those moments don’t need a technician.

They need a companion. They need you, right here, not with all the answers, but with an open heart. And that is the most beautiful, important work we will ever do.