Recently, I came across this talk on how to stay in control of different situations...hope you also find it helpful! :)

When you feel down, frustrated, or down right angry - When your plan did not work out; when life is full of inconveniences; when people you encounter every day is extremely hostile and hard to get along with. How do you deal with these circumstances? How do you bless all these people and situations and avoid being consumed with anger? Indeed, we cannot control our circumstances in life but we can control our reaction. Someone once said that life is 10% of what happened to us and 90% of how we respond.

Indeed, many of our days in life will not go as planned. Life is filled with disappointments. But when we allow ourselves to be upset and to give in to the temptations to snap and be filled with anger then we are giving our power away. We were created to live in peace, to be filled with joy and calmness – That is our position of power…That is when we are at our best. Too many people think that they cannot be happy until they control their circumstances, until everything goes their way – That is not at all realistic. Living life to the fullest means that we are able to say: “I don’t have to have my way in order to have a good day. My plan doesn’t have to work out for me to be happy. Everyone doesn’t have to treat me right for me to enjoy my life.” Remember that no person can take your joy; no circumstance can rob your peace; no interruption can destroy your enthusiasm. If we allow people, circumstances, and interruptions to control our joy then there will always be reasons for us to be discouraged. To be happy is the choice we have to make for ourselves. We have to be determined to enjoy our life. When we allow what someone says or does to upset us then we allow them to control us. People who upset and anger us knows which button to push then they sit back and watch us lose it. They are in total control of our lives.

That is a reality! Some people out there feel that it is their calling to point out what we are doing wrong. They are constantly finding fault with us. We need to rise above them! We don’t have to respond to our own critic or prove to people who we are. All we need is to stay on the high road and let God fight the battle for us. Even though it is hard to practice, try your best to not pay much attention to people who are nasty and negative; people who pull you down; people who have poison inside their heart and all they want is to contaminate you with their poison. Rise above their level – Be a part of the solution not the problem. Overcome evil with good.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Kingdom of God.” People in our generation today usually associated meekness with weakness – being shy, reserved, and fearful. Being meek is definitely NOT being weak. Meekness means keeping our strength under control. When we are meek, we don’t go around straightening everyone out or respond to every critic. It is not worth our time and energy. We are an eagle and we don’t spend our time fighting with the crows. An eagle rises to an altitude where the crows cannot fly.

There is principal called the “Law of the garbage truck.” Many people are like big garbage trucks. They go around all day full of frustrations; full of disappointments and anger. As their garbage trucks pile up they need somewhere to dump it and as life would have it, they dump it on us. Successful people…Followers of Christ don’t allow garbage trucks to overtake their day. If someone dump a load on you, don’t be consumed by anger otherwise you’ll end up carrying their load around and eventually you’ll dump it on somebody else. Keep your lid on. We cannot stop people from dumping their garbage, their poison, their criticisms, their gossips, their anger but we can and have the right to stop them from contaminating and affecting us. Keep these words close to your heart: He who angers you controls you!

Amen..Fantastic post..