The Things We Can't Control

Jun 13 , 2026
By Kidist Yidnekachew

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Society celebrates visible achievements while paying little attention to the effort that precedes them. A genuine comeback requires patience, persistence and belief in progress that cannot yet be seen. Similar tensions emerge when parents attempt to balance faith, success and personal fulfillment in the lives of their children. In both cases, there is a temptation to force a result. The article argues that meaningful growth rarely follows a predictable script.

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Lately, two thoughts have occupied my mind. At first glance, they seem unrelated. One is about comebacks. The other is about how parents view the spirituality of their children.

The more I think about them, the more connected they appear. Both reveal how uncomfortable we are with uncertainty and how strongly we want to control outcomes that may never have been ours to control.

The first thought concerns comebacks.

We celebrate them everywhere. In sports, a comeback is a team recovering from defeat. On social media, it is a celebrity overcoming scandal or an individual rebounding from hardship. We love these stories because they offer a satisfying ending. They turn struggle into success and give difficult experiences a sense of closure.

Yet the comeback itself is often misunderstood.

Most people focus on the visible result: the victory, the promotion, the restored health or the revived business. What receives far less attention is the long period that comes before it.

A comeback is rarely dramatic. More often, it is a series of small decisions made in private. It is the person who keeps applying for jobs after repeated rejection. It is someone recovering from illness one day at a time. It is an exhausted individual slowly rebuilding after burnout.

There is usually no audience and little recognition.

The quiet persistence that makes recovery possible often goes unnoticed. Yet those ordinary moments of endurance are the true substance of a comeback.

What concerns me is our growing impatience with process. We want immediate progress and visible results. If change does not arrive quickly, we assume something is wrong. We want transformation without the uncertainty, effort and discomfort that usually accompany it.

A genuine comeback requires faith in progress before progress becomes visible. It demands the courage to continue when there is little evidence that things are improving.

That leads me to my second thought.

Parents often say they want their children to grow up with faith, values and strong principles. They see spirituality as an important foundation for life.

Yet when those children become deeply committed to their faith, some parents become uneasy. They worry their child is becoming too religious, too devoted or too focused on spiritual matters. They fear they may become disconnected from the wider world or miss out on other aspects of life.

I find this tension fascinating.

Many parents want faith to shape their children, but not define them. They appreciate the discipline, morality and guidance that spirituality can provide, while also wanting their children to succeed professionally, maintain friendships and enjoy life.

These concerns are understandable. Every parent wants a healthy and fulfilling future for their child.

Still, I wonder if we sometimes focus too much on one danger while overlooking another.

What happens when a young person has no anchor at all? Without a deeper sense of purpose, it becomes easy to drift from one influence to the next. Trends, distractions and passing opinions can quickly shape priorities and decisions.

Parents who worry that their children are becoming overly spiritual may be trying to protect them from one risk. Yet they may unintentionally expose them to another.

If faith encourages kindness, compassion and respect for others, is being "too spiritual" necessarily a problem? As long as it does not lead to intolerance or harm, what exactly are we afraid of?

I do not claim to have clear answers. I am simply observing what I see around me.

The more I reflect on these two issues, the more convinced I become that they share a common theme: trust.

People struggling through setbacks often want immediate proof that their efforts will succeed. Parents often want certainty that their children will develop according to a particular vision of balance and success.

In both cases, there is a desire to control the outcome.

Yet growth rarely follows a predictable path. The person rebuilding after failure cannot know exactly how recovery will unfold. Parents cannot fully determine who their children will become. They can offer guidance, support and example, but eventually every individual must find their own way.

Perhaps that is the lesson hidden in both stories.

We can do the work. We can lay a foundation. We can remain patient and provide guidance where it is needed. Beyond that, there is only so much control we truly possess.

Whether we are rebuilding our lives after a setback or watching our children grow into their own identities, there comes a point when we must trust the process.

We are all navigating uncertainty. We are all moving toward destinations we cannot fully see. Sometimes the wisest thing we can do is stop obsessing over the outcome and focus on the next step in front of us.

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PUBLISHED ON Jun 13,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1363]

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