By O. Deng, TIWP Student

Control is an unspoken rule. It might go to the person with the loudest voice in the room, the one with the most connections or the one that’s the best at their craft. The people who can’t fight it must quietly bend to the people who have it. And the people who lose it crave it back. People can be controlled by anything until they reverse it and take control instead. Having no control brings out a helpless feeling, whereas being controlled makes you feel like you’re living a life that doesn’t belong to yourself. Having no control is seeing your life go in a downward trajectory and sitting back and watching because there’s not much you can do. Being controlled is similar, but your actions revolve around the priorities of someone else—your time, your thoughts, your choices slowly reshaped to fit a blueprint that isn’t yours. Eventually, you stop recognizing where their will ends and yours begins.