I'm Out of Control

and it scares me

My adult daughter likes to watch TV shows with me. She picks a show, and we binge it together. It’s how she like me to spend ‘quality time’ with her. But, many of the shows she likes stress me out. Like she loves the series The Walking Dead, but zombies make my skin crawl, and this show is overflowing with zombies. Which I can’t stand looking at, so I avoided the herd watching mentality and stayed away from The Walking Dead until I no longer could. Once I said I’d give it a try, I was in for the ride of my life.

At first, I watched through my fingers. But then, I started to think about the special effects makeup artistry used on the zombies, and I found that I could remove my fingers and watch without any protection as they shuffled towards the heroes, arms outstretched and mouths chomping.

Slowly, I started to actually enjoy the show and to appreciate a lot of the characters. The only problem is that it still stresses me out, not because of the walking dead, but because of the walking humans. I hate it when people are mean to each other, when they get hurt, when good people die, all that stuff. So, when I watch the show, I’m constantly mad at the TV. I yell at is saying things like:

“Don’t you know that if you kill all the people, all that will be left is the walking dead?”

“Why don’t you just try to find a nice neighborhood and build up a safe fence around it, plant some veggies, and find some livestock.”

“Why are you stopping to talk about it? There are walkers everywhere, can’t you just take this discussion somewhere safe?”

“Where are all the dogs?”

My daughter then tells me to stop worrying about it and just enjoy the show, but I tell her, “No, I want them to do it differently: then things would work out.”

My daughter tells me I can’t control what they’re doing, but I say, “Yeah, but it stresses me out so much because they keep making stupid choices.”

To which my daughter says, “You just need to enjoy the journey. Don’t ask why these things are happening; just trust that it will make for a really good show.” And she’s right. I do appreciate the writers. They have developed great characters and have surprised me time and time again, so why am I so stressed out as I watch? I guess it’s because I want it all to go perfectly, but if it all went perfectly, then what kind of show would we have? And how long would it last? Certainly not 11 seasons. There has to be drama; there have to be trials, struggles, death even. All that is what makes it worth watching. So, the question remains: why do I stress about it?

I see this as an illustration for the life of faith. Why am I stressed about drama, trials, struggles, and death? It’s a part of the story of life, and I have no power to make it better by worrying it into perfection. And in the same way that a good TV show is worth watching when it isn’t perfect and bad things happen, life is worth living even when it isn’t perfect and bad things happen. In fact, that’s the only life we get. In this world, we will have troubles; that is not in question. So, if I can enjoy a stressful TV show without stressing, maybe I can learn something about the life of faith.

For instance, trust the writers; I’ve already decided they are good at what they do— at creating characters, plots, and sub-plots. So, I want to let go and trust them to do what they do, no matter what it looks like they are doing to the plot that I absolutely would not do.

I also have to stop demanding perfection. When characters do stupid things— like stand and talk about interpersonal issues in the middle of a forest filled with walkers and enemy combatants—I have to just let them. So, I am working on not getting all stressed out over how I would have done it better. I have no control over these characters, and I also have no idea where the writers are going by having them do the stupid thing they are doing. Refer back to: Trust the Writers.

Sometimes, I have to confess that I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’m starting to realize that’s a misunderstanding of the true meaning of hope. I’m not talking about a wishful kind of hope, but a certain hope, that everything is going to work out ok, which us people of faith know about all too well. In the same way, I know that it will workout in the end for the heroes of “The Walking Dead” because I already know the end of the story. I know there are sequels, and so I know who makes it to the end. I won’t give any spoilers, but knowing the end while I’m in the middle allows me to have hope that is certain, and not just wishful thinking. When there is a stand off and it looks like all is lost, I can have hope that it is not, or there would not be more seasons and more spin-offs. Hope is an essential part of faith that helps us not only make it through life’s struggles but helps us keep the faith.

I think if I can learn these three things, I can learn to enjoy the journey. I notice that the more I stress out about the stupid choices of the characters, the more stressful the show is to me. And conversely, the more I relax and say, “This is a part of the plot that I surrendered to the writers,” the more enjoyable the journey is becoming. In the same way, the more hope I have, the more I enjoy my life.

You might not like scary shows like “The Walking Dead,” and I can see why, but they can serve as an illustration of the life of faith and a practice in letting go—at least they do for me. So, I am embracing the concept wholeheartedly. I am— in the pretend world of TV drama— working through some of my issues of surrender, hope, and trust. It makes sense, right? That if you can learn to control your need to control others, to demand perfection, and to allow yourself to hope and surrender to the Writer then you can have less stress in your life.

So, here's to learning to enjoy the plot over which I have no control, but which I am going to appreciate in spite of other people’s Walking Dead-like choices and missed opportunities.