But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can live a life that is more relaxed, more easy going and has less stress.

How?

Work on expanding your domain of control. It’s very simple in theory but hard in practice.

For myself, it’s taken me a while to get to this point but it’s through a combination of dealing with my mom’s death, speaking in front of hundreds of kids, finding my path and pursuing my passion.

When you expand your domain of control, you learn to focus more on what you can control rather than on what you cannot control.

You also learn to realize that a lot of what happens isn’t personal and is someone else’s attempt at controlling you. Your friends. Your family. Your co-workers. Your partner.

When you expand your domain of control, you will find that your stress will immediately be reduced and even when you get into stressful situations, you will be more calm and capable of dealing with things.

For example, if your neighbour’s hedge is 2 inches too high according to the local bylaw, SO? Let it be 2 inches too high.

If someone’s insecurities cause them to make a decision that you don’t like, SO? Move on. It’s their issue to deal with.

When someone in government does something stupid, SO? Everyone makes mistakes, tries to get attention and ultimately is a person just like anyone else. Just because they are an elected official, why focus on the small details? Let what they do or don’t do go.

I’m not saying have a more apathetic life. I’m simply saying to realize when something happens that you cannot control.

It can be summed up in this simple quote:

“You must control what you can; cope with what you cannot.”

Each person is different. The larger your domain of control, the more impact you’ll have on the world and the less you’ll care about what is happening locally. The smaller your domain of control, the less impact you’ll have globally and the more you’ll care about what is happening locally.

I’ve learned that I would rather have less of an impact on a larger number of people than have more of an impact on a smaller number of people. So I see my domain of control being much larger than most people. Which means that I tend to care less about what is happening locally and not be as involved on a local level because I am more focused on having a global impact.

So I challenge you to look at your domain of control. Should you expand or contract it? No matter what you decide, make sure that you are living within that. Because I think problems arise when we try to leave our domain or don’t realize what belongs inside that domain.

Why is love like karate?

If you look at how the ranking system works in karate, there are different colours of obis which represents the level one has achieved.

The most widely practiced style of karate, shotokan, uses the following ranking system (from Wikipedia):

Level — Obi colour
6th kyū — yellow
5th kyū — orange
4th kyū — green
3rd kyū — blue
2nd and 1st kyū — brown
1st-3rd dan — black
4th-9th dan — black and red, or white and red
10th dan — dark blue

Each obi or belt colour represents the level that one can achieve in karate and it represents hard work, dedication and commitment to the art of karate.

We can compare love to karate in this way because one could say that love represents hard work, dedication and commitment between two people.

6 Questions to Ask Before You Tell Someone You Love Them

There are more elements to love than those three, but as a person trying to understand what love might mean, this can be a useful analogy.

If you meet someone and they tell you that they love you, think about what level that love might be at. Is it very new? Maybe it’s an orange belt kind of love. Have you been together for a while? Maybe it’s a brown belt kind of love.

36 Questions to Fall in Love With Anyone

I think that once you get to the black belt level kind of love, that is such an advanced level representing the highest level of love — engagement, marriage, a lifelong partnership.

Some people get scared when they hear the “L-word” but in reality, love can represent a whole wide range of levels.

So the next time someone tells you that they love you, think about what colour of belt they’re wearing.