If you have read about being in your Garden, then you already know that the only four things in the entire Universe that you have control over are your Thoughts, your Emotions, your Beliefs, and your Decisions. By extension then, anything that falls under the ultimate authority of someone else (their Garden) is something that you have no control over. Yeah, obviously.
But, in between your Garden walls and everyone else’s Garden walls, there’s a lot of ground that isn’t covered by anyone’s Garden. Who controls your car or what goes on in your home? Who controls the success of the company you work for? Who controls the U.S. Government or climate change, or the price of oil? The answer of course is nobody. None of those things fall into the category of any one person’s Garden, so no one has complete control of those areas. But a lot of people have influence over the outcome.
The primary difference between Influence and Control is that Control is absolute, whereas influence is applying your own force to an object, but that object can also receive other forces. The end result is the combination or summation of all of the forces applied. Think about something as simple as a ping pong ball. Surely you can control a simple ping pong ball, right? Well, can you actually? If I asked you to keep that ball perfectly still, could you? What if, while you were holding that ping pong ball perfectly still, I full-body-tackled you? What would happen to that perfectly still ball? “Well,” you might say, “I’ll just encase it in a 20 ton block of concrete!” Yes, that would help, but could you prevent me (or and entire group of determined construction workers) from taking a jack-hammer or a 20-ton excavator to that concrete block? What about the earth? What if the area you were in experienced an earthquake, or if a meteor from space struck that exact spot? Could you ever truly guarantee that the ball would stay perfectly still? And if you can’t control something as simple and small as a ping pong ball, how could you possibly hope to control something complex like getting a promotion at work or planning a graduation party? Some things, like your body or your personal property, you might have a great deal of influence over, or the number of people trying to influence that thing might be fairly small. But even then, a thief or Parkinson’s can suddenly and unexpectedly wield influence over those things. You will never have full control.
Believe it or not, this is not just a semantic argument. It is of supreme importance to your own mental health and success in anything you try to do that you learn to recognize and stay mindful of the difference between these two concepts, and to be viewing problems and solutions based on what things you have the most influence over, but also recognizing that, no matter how you plan, or how many factors you consider, you never fully control anything outside your Garden. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bring your influence to bear to try to bring about the outcome you desire. Just understand and plan for the limitations.