This posture of radical acceptance stands in stark contrast to the modern human impulse to fix, manage, and engineer every facet of daily existence. For licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist Steve Hauptman, author of Monkeytraps: Why We Try to Control Everything and How We Can Stop, the central obstacle to peace is not our lack of discipline, but our deep-seated addiction to control itself. Reflecting on this universal struggle, Hauptman offers a candid re-examination of how humans attempt to make reality conform to their desires, and why that effort is ultimately bound to fail.
The illusion of total control often manifests in surprising places. Hauptman recalls an encounter with a young speed-cuber—a friendly, skilled individual capable of solving a Rubik’s Cube in under sixty seconds. While acknowledging the young man’s personal charm, Hauptman admits to feeling a deep, symbolic resentment toward him. The frustration was not personal, but existential. To Hauptman, life has long felt like an inherently insoluble Rubik’s Cube. The harder one tries to align all the tiles on one side to form a single, perfect color, the more chaotic and multicolored the remaining sides inevitably become.
This dynamic plays out in the granular decisions of everyday life. Individuals routinely find themselves caught in a constant loop of competing priorities. One can choose to meet with clients or tend to household chores. One can devote hours to family or focus on writing a book. One can join friends for a lively dinner or strictly monitor their weight. One can stay updated on professional reading or unwind with a mystery novel. The inescapable reality, Hauptman points out, is that no one can do everything at once. Daily life is an unrelenting series of trade-offs.
This phenomenon extends far beyond individual calendar management; it reflects a broader law of human experience. The more aggressively people attempt to force reality to match their rigid expectations, the more forcefully reality tends to push back. This dynamic has long been highlighted throughout human storytelling, serving as the central motif in classic and modern cautionary tales alike—from the tragic greed of King Midas and the cold isolation of Ebenezer Scrooge to the chaotic scientific overreach depicted in Jurassic Park.
In his clinical work and personal reflections, Hauptman characterizes this human impulse as an actual addiction to control. This diagnosis is not reserved merely for those who are overtly bossy, micromanaging, or domineering. Rather, in a therapeutic context, control refers to the deep, fundamental human urge to compel reality to cooperate—an ongoing attempt to force people, unpredictable situations, and life outcomes to conform precisely to personal needs, wants, and expectations.
Through years of analyzing this drive, Hauptman identified three central paradoxes that govern human attempts at control.
The first paradox dictates that the more control a person feels they need, the less in control they actually end up feeling. The urge to secure every variable creates a hyper-vigilant state of mind that amplifies anxiety, making any minor disruption feel catastrophic.
The second paradox centers on interpersonal dynamics: the harder an individual tries to exert control over other people, the more those people are forced to exert control in return. Pressure breeds resistance, transforming relationships into silent or explicit power struggles where mutual autonomy is eroded.
The third paradox—the very principle that made the speed-cuber so infuriating as a metaphor—is that achieving control in one area of life inevitably requires surrendering control in another.
This third paradox is visible across numerous human experiences, where the intense effort to master one domain directly triggers a collapse in another. Consider the individual who relies on alcohol to manage overwhelming emotional distress, only to slowly lose control over their reliance on alcohol itself. Or consider the driven corporate executive who achieves immense professional status and financial success, only to find himself completely estranged from his spouse, children, and extended family.
Similar patterns emerge in family life. A mother may dedicate the entirety of her energy and identity to her children, only to wake up years later realizing she has become so deeply disconnected from her husband that they operate as functional strangers. In another instance, a man struggling with depression may spend decades successfully concealing his despair from friends and colleagues, until one morning the overwhelming toll of maintaining that facade leaves him physically and emotionally unable to get out of bed.
Despite witnessing this third paradox unfold repeatedly in both clinical settings and personal life, Hauptman observes that human beings remain remarkably resistant to absorbing its lesson. People naturally continue to crave conflicting outcomes: to write a book while simultaneously devoting endless hours to family; to achieve financial wealth while enjoying abundant rest and leisure; to indulge in bagels and pizza while watching the number on the bathroom scale steadily drop.
For most of his life, Hauptman admits, he interpreted the "scrambled" side of his personal Rubik’s Cube as absolute proof of personal failure. Uncleaned rooms, unwritten book chapters, missed family moments, or dietary indulgences were met with harsh self-accusation. If the house was cluttered, it meant he was lazy. If he wasn’t writing, he was wasting precious time. If he spent time writing, he was neglecting pressing responsibilities. If he ate pizza, he lacked discipline; if he abstained, he felt deprived. The unaligned faces of the cube were constantly levying accusations of inadequacy.
Over time, however, a critical psychological shift occurred. Rather than treating an unmanaged area of life as evidence of flaw or failure, Hauptman began viewing it simply as evidence that a conscious choice had been made.
Every choice carries an unavoidable opportunity cost. Embedded inside every "yes" is an implicit "no." A day defined by deep, productive writing naturally means that domestic chores will remain undone. Conversely, a day spent completing household errands means the book remains untouched. Every single decision requires a sacrifice of alternative possibilities.
While this principle may seem obvious on paper, it remains remarkably difficult for the human psyche to accept. Deep within every person exists a stubborn, demanding impulse that simply wants what it wants without friction. This part of the psyche demands choices without costs, insisting on having its cake and eating it too. Whether categorized as childish, obstinate, or addicted, it is an inclination shared across the human spectrum.
Real progress, Hauptman notes, does not come from magically solving the cube, but from slowly training this reactive inner self to accept that life is not a puzzle designed to be perfectly aligned.
This shift in perspective was unexpectedly put to the test during a routine medical examination. During a standard physical, Hauptman’s physician performed an electrocardiogram that picked up an anomaly indicative of a potential transient ischemic attack (TIA). Although Hauptman felt completely fine, his doctor instructed him to proceed directly to the hospital emergency room.
Upon arriving at the hospital, Hauptman was placed on a gurney and parked in a busy hallway, where he remained for four hours while medical staff conducted tests. The sudden disruption forced him to cancel six client therapy sessions, manage his wife’s anxiety over the phone, and face the looming stress of unpredictable medical bills—all while lying immobile in a crowded corridor waiting for updates.
In earlier years, such an event would have triggered intense anger, panic, and frustration over lost time and compromised plans. Instead, faced with a situation entirely outside his control, Hauptman surprised himself. Recognizing the futility of fighting reality, he closed his eyes and took a peaceful, one-hour nap right there in the hospital hallway.
The moment served as a quiet revelation. It demonstrated that the part of him conditioned to demand absolute control had finally grown willing to accept life’s trade-offs without useless protest. The experience reinforced a fundamental truth that applies far beyond a hospital hallway: failing to solve every side of life’s Rubik’s Cube is not a failure at all. The real accomplishment lies in letting go of the demand to do everything, and learning to sit comfortably with the choices we make.
