How to Stop Fearing That Everything Will Fall Apart Without You | Healthy Control

AVAlexander Volchek

Why do people start controlling everything—in relationships, family life, parenting, work, and everyday routines? It feels as though something is bound to go wrong unless you check, remind someone, or keep watch. This often creates inner tension and conflict with others. The first important point is that control takes different forms. There is healthy control: you perceive the space, feel responsible, notice consequences, and act for the good. Then there is unhealthy control, driven by fear, anxiety, distrust, the desire to hold on to another person, or an inability to tolerate uncertainty. In this episode, we will explore where the boundary lies, how to distinguish the two, how to understand which kind of control you are exercising, and what to do about other people's unhealthy control so it does not destroy you, your relationships, or the people around you. That is what we will discuss today.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Control and the desire to control: what is a realistic understanding of what we can control in life? Can we control anything at all, and where is it pointless? Can or should we exercise control? Where does that feeling come from? Some people barely try to control anything, while others have something like a god complex. They think everything depends on them checking it. It makes me laugh, but I remember flying and feeling that if I turned off the screen showing the altitude, the plane would fall out of the sky. I am exaggerating, of course, but isn't that essentially what all control is? Nothing depends on you, yet you think you are managing something.

AVAlexander Volchek

Your airplane example reminds me of yesterday. In the morning, I was sitting by the hotel pool while the children swam, including Damian in the large pool. I noticed that neither Polina nor I was watching him very closely. You realize that with this kind of control, you are not controlling anything: two minutes, or even one minute without watching, and that could be it. The only thing I told myself when I thought about it was that if it is meant to happen, it will happen. In general, if someone is supposed to die at a particular moment, they will die then, perhaps with a slight shift in timing. If not in the pool, they might choke or their heart might stop, however much you think about it or watch them. At that same moment, of course, I wondered what thoughts, emotions, and states I would experience if it happened. Would I keep trying to undo it, reliving it within myself and trying to change the fact that it had happened?

The question was how fully my whole system could live through it and remain in that inner trust. With that thought, I stopped watching him again and went back to my work. This is an important connection in your question. Whenever we consider control, we need to ask what kind of control it is. Over a husband or wife? Over a situation with children like the one I described, to prevent anything happening to a child? Strictly monitoring a plant so it does not die, or a dog so it does not pee somewhere? What are you controlling? You always need to look more broadly, from two sides. The first is why this state arose in me regarding Damian at that particular moment. Let me stay with that first aspect: what was that energy, and why did it appear? Perhaps I picked it up from my wife, or from nearby parents who were standing and watching.

Or perhaps the child called me, in effect saying, “Something is about to happen to me,” drawing my attention so that I gave him energy. That is another important possibility. Or perhaps the whole space said, “Watch the child. This is water; there is some danger.” But what danger? In that case, there is danger everywhere: on any balcony or step, with a hammer, nails, a cup, a glass, a dog, anything. The danger is endless—with people in the city, or in a car while driving. There is always danger. Where did this energy come from? What is it? Then become aware of how you relate to it, whether you are ready to live through it or remain with it, and what your whole system of reasoning about it is. This is very important. When I looked into it, I came back to the thought that if someone is supposed to die, they will die.

I know that this is the most important point of support when it comes to death or something happening to another person. It is the most important thing to connect with. I know that death cannot be controlled. Once you know that, you understand that other situations are beyond your control too. If a bird is supposed to poop on my head, it will. Can I protect myself? In theory, I can put an umbrella over me. This umbrella is here because of the sun that was shining a moment ago, not because of birds. You can protect yourself against some things, but if a bird is supposed to poop on you, it will do it when you step out from under the umbrella. We need to see control from these two sides. And it does not matter whether you are controlling something or another person is. If I see someone exercising control, I look at why that particular energy arises in them. I may be able to explain it, choose not to explain it, or say something firmly and sharply. For example, Polina's mother is coming to visit us in August. She exercises very strict control over what happens to the children.

So strict that she is prepared to harm other people to prevent anything being bad for the children. For example, she might feed the children but not you. With Polina, other people matter a great deal. She will feed herself first, then think about me and feed me. That differs from her mother, who feeds the children first. Her mother would also feed you and me, her family, at roughly the same time. She would most likely feed people from outside the family at the same time too. It is different. Polina often forgets about me or sometimes other family members because she is very concerned about other people and what happens to them. I am not saying this is good or bad. I am giving examples of very different ways energy arises. For example, I keep track of the lights at home, turning them on and off. It matters to me. It does not matter to my wife: she turns them on, and turns them off when…

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

We are alike in that.

AVAlexander Volchek

She turns them off when the light bothers her. She does not monitor it; that system of control is not there. I turn lights on and off, and if I visit your home, I will turn them off there too. This matters. I will also close things—for example, closing the bathroom door is important to me wherever I am. Is closing that door control? It is energy. I will close it at home, in someone else's space, and at your house. As a man, I also make sure the toilet seat is not left up. Some men do not care, and that immediately tells you something. What does it show, Tanya? Whether they think about other people.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Actually, yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

First, notice whether he thinks about other people. Second, whether he also monitors certain things. Is that control positive or negative? Let us consider a toilet seat left up.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Or towels left lying around.

AVAlexander Volchek

Let us examine it; this is important. Whether a man is in someone else's home or his own—unless he lives alone, although even then it is interesting—leaving the toilet seat up shows that he is not monitoring the situation. Obviously, because if he were…

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Yes, that does happen.

AVAlexander Volchek

It is unlikely that keeping the seat up is essential to him, that he is deliberately making sure it stays up. He is not monitoring it. Yet he creates a problem for other people, because women and other men use that space. In my own home, at least, if a male guest finds the seat down, he must put it back afterward, unless it is an automatic toilet. Some people pay no attention to this. Is this control positive or negative? Here, Tanya, we reach the main question about control: why does someone want to control something—or why…

Why do they want control, or why do they want there to be none? In this case, I would like that person to monitor it, because it is right for the women and for everyone involved. When a man in my home leaves the bathroom door open, I usually say, “I can tell immediately that you either live alone or do not think about the women and children in this house.” I say it openly and quite easily to men, including my friends. Of course, I would not say it to a stranger who happened to visit. I would probably go over and lower the seat and lid myself. It would be automatic. I should not have to put up a sign; this is not a restaurant. I might put up a sign to keep the toilet closed because my dog likes drinking from the bowl. Fine. But I am not going to put up another sign saying that women live here. In this case, I would ask him to monitor it, or do it myself, for other people's benefit.

UPUnidentified participant

Mm-hmm.

AVAlexander Volchek

For other people's benefit. That is one kind of control. Sometimes you ask someone to monitor a process because you want them to do it for your own sake. For example, my wife leaves the bathroom door open, and I ask her to close it. I am asking her to monitor a particular process, to pay attention to it. She says, “Sasha, I cannot keep track of it. I cannot manage it.” I say, “Pay attention to it.” What does she need to do? Introduce a state of control into her system, Tanya. She needs to maintain that attention, and she does not want to. She thinks I want to control her, while I want to stop monitoring the bathroom. I do not want to keep allocating energy to it; it is an enormous drain on my energy. Likewise, if my dog is not in his crate at home in the evening, I start worrying and have to monitor him. My children are concerned only with being happy. They say they want the dog to be happy.

There, the dog has started barking. They say they want the dog to be happy, but what concerns them is their own state. It makes no difference to them that their father is monitoring the space and worrying about it. Why am I worried? Because the dog could chew up a twenty-thousand-dollar sofa, which he recently did—he took a bite out of it. Or he could destroy something else, hurt himself, or cause some other problem. Beyond that, if he is not in a designated space and following certain routines—if he starts lying on the sofa, for example—he will get used to a pattern of behavior he should not have. There are rules, especially for an animal. An animal is not a human being. People have rules, let alone animals. Is this control right or wrong, Tanya? Not everyone in my family likes it. Half dislike it; the other half do not care. Some of the children do not mind, while others and my wife dislike it. My wife sees this control as negative. It is important to examine the situation and truly understand it.

Who is doing what, why, and for what purpose? Why did this state of control arise? Why do you want someone to monitor something, pay attention to it, and understand what is happening? Why should you turn off a light? Why is it normal today to switch it off in your own home or someone else's if it does not need to be on in that room? This is a healthy way of seeing things, Tanya, even if someone has so much money that the cost does not matter. You never know how another family feels about it or what may happen as a result. You might leave a light on, and afterward the husband tells his wife, “Your friends are using up all our electricity,” or says they are spending too much on it, and they quarrel. You can bring a problem into someone else's home. Besides, we live in a world where this uses resources. Learning not to waste them needlessly matters. It also teaches you to notice basic, simple things in life.

Turning off a light is not difficult. You cannot name any benefit from leaving it on, but there are downsides, so why not turn it off? In the same way, you need to learn to notice and do other things, and monitor them, Tanya. You need to monitor your state toward another person: when you meet them, are you perceiving them or not? Believe me, I do not know anyone in the world who has managed to keep that under control. I know many who would like to. I would like to remain in that state one hundred percent of the time, but I cannot: constantly perceiving every person as an infinite spiritual system, immediately seeing them only as that whenever I encounter them. I notice that at times I still perceive someone within a very narrow range. Then I can expand and look across different ranges. I do perceive many people spiritually, but not one hundred percent of the time. I cannot put that under continuous control. Why? We come to the central question: what energy drives this control? Does a person have the energy to perform certain actions or understand cause-and-effect relationships?

Sometimes, when someone asks you to turn off the light, you need to do it because another person asked, not because you must save the world's energy. Or you think of others when you enter their home: should you take your shoes off? People often say Americans keep their shoes on indoors. I see half taking them off and half leaving them on. Half ask, “Should I keep my shoes on or take them off?” Some never even think to ask. That involves a particular kind of knowledge and perception, rather than energy. But you also need a particular energy to be able to monitor anything at all. Control has two aspects: a lack of energy to do something on one hand, and a limited perception of energy on the other. Energy arises in someone to control something—for example, constantly monitoring a child's health or a wife.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

Or something else.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

For example, someone constantly needs to monitor their wife or husband: where they are, who they talk to, and how. You speak about caring for another person—reporting continually on where you are and how you communicate, or sometimes avoiding certain people to spare your wife or husband.

AVAlexander Volchek

There is a difference between genuinely being considerate and doing good, and avoiding communication as manipulation. Or withholding the truth as manipulation. In most such cases I know, it becomes manipulation. You do not tell the other person because you know certain circumstances will arise. It is not about sparing them; it is about sparing and protecting yourself from that person, your wife or husband. Protecting yourself: “I will not speak to this person because I do not want the whole reaction I would get afterward from my wife or husband.”

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Is that good for the other person?

AVAlexander Volchek

No. And it is not good for you either, because you are manipulating. Sometimes you may choose not to see people. Imagine your husband controlling something you do, and you avoiding certain people so as not to hurt him or prompt questions. In essence, you would admit to yourself, “I am really avoiding this to prevent harm to myself.” Once that arises, it is ego, and within that ego it is entirely your fault. The husband has no part in it. Notice that: he has no part in it and suffers no karmic consequences for it, because this is exclusively your problem. This is very important; it is definitely so. The question then is what to do. There are different sides. On one side, you may truly act for another person out of love. You need to recognize that: “This time I will not meet these people out of genuine respect for someone else.”

At other times, you notice, “This is manipulation. I just do not want to deal with an hour and a half of debate tonight, suffer afterward, or pay for it somewhere else.” Then you begin asking what would actually be honest in life. Honesty does not mean rescuing the other person and playing along. Not at all. If you are dealing with a tyrant—a tyrannical wife or employer—that does not mean you must play their game or stay with them. On the other hand, when we say, “This person is violating my freedom and interfering in my life. Where is the boundary of their control? They have no right,” that concern for our own freedom is fundamentally ego, if we look at it.

That is how it needs to be examined: as ego, from the outset. There are indeed times when other people's influence is so strong that it shuts you off from perception, depriving you of the ability to act freely. But the basic freedom people usually talk about is ego. The existence of cause and effect, the world's karma, heredity, and the limits of the physical body already constitute a lack of freedom. People have been socially conditioned to experience these things that way. Someone might say they do not want to live by the laws of the Universe or the principles of karma, that what happened before does not matter, that they live within ten years of this life. Or they do something bad and say, “It is fine; I gave somebody some money.” Then they say, “You are interfering with my freedom by creating consequences for me.” That is a major mistake. People violate even ordinary, clearly written laws: simple things such as not littering or stealing.

These are simple, understandable things. To truly understand freedom, a person must at the very least stop fighting karmic causes and effects and become aware of them before even discussing the subject. But we live in society. An employer may do certain things, and you have to keep working there because you have no other option and support your whole family. Or you live in a country whose laws you disagree with, laws that are not exactly democratic. You do not necessarily have to go out and challenge them in the name of truth. There are situations in which you have a right to act in ways someone might call manipulation, although they are not, and you will never be held responsible for them. But it is very important not to slip into something else, Tanya. Is it genuine manipulation, is it legitimate within society, or are you manipulating because you simply do not want to face something? All such situations need to be examined, or at least acknowledged, with an adequate understanding of why you personally act that way.

In other situations, you need to say, “No, I am going to see these people. They are people I like.” For example, my wife dislikes it when I vacation alone. Her position is roughly that we should vacation together: first, all of us with the children; then, perhaps, the two of us if we can. But all together is the default. This is a recurring trigger for her. Other combinations do not exist. She does not want to travel or vacation alone and has never asked to in her life. She does not go away with her female friends, say for a week with one friend. Has she ever gone away with you for a week? No. Have you ever heard her suggest it? No. But if she came and proposed it—“Actually, I am pretty sure she would worry the whole week and not enjoy the trip.”

If she proposed it, you might consider it. “Yes, gladly. Let's go away somewhere for two full days.” What is interesting is that none of you has ever proposed it to her. “Actually, it never even occurred to me.” We have a friend, Anya Gurina, and I asked her, “Anya, have you ever suggested this to Polina? You are so easygoing and meet up with all your girlfriends. You are so great at this—why have you never offered to do it with Polina? If she cannot do it herself, why don't you suggest it? If you propose it and insist, she will agree; I know she will.” “Yes, but I do not know whether she would enjoy it afterward.” It is amazing how you all tremble before her. My goodness! Imagine how powerfully her spiritual being constrains things: you cannot even approach her with the question. You do not want to tempt fate or face what might happen. What are you afraid of facing?

Responsibility—as though making the suggestion means taking responsibility for all the consequences she experiences. But being afraid to face those consequences is already manipulation on your part. She is responsible for herself. She is an adult; if she decides to travel with you, that is her responsibility, not yours. That is why I readily suggest all kinds of actions to people, across a broad range, while understanding possible consequences on both sides. I know the other person is responsible, not me. I can explain clearly and reasonably whose responsibility is whose, and try to leave it where it belongs so that nobody depends on me and I depend on nobody. I have always said that my spiritual being cannot depend on anyone, and that is an enormous good. It therefore does not create further dependencies; I do not make people dependent on me. So while my wife does not consider vacationing alone herself, the idea of my doing so provokes a negative reaction in her.

Is that a state of control, Tanya? Of course it is control over another person. Moreover, I am afraid to tell her about it or discuss it. Sometimes I have to invent things and think of explanations. We have been married a long time, and for years I would periodically say, “I have a very important meeting or event there.” I had to involve someone else and explain why I needed to go to Italy, for example. That is manipulation. Why did I need to do it? Someone will say it is normal for a man to explain things to his wife. Wait a moment. Hundreds or thousands of events happen in my life every day, and she is not interested in 999 of them, or 99 percent—often things far more important than a trip to another country. Honestly, they simply do not interest her. She does not even ask who attends my meetings or what kinds of people they are, though I interact with an extraordinary number of people. A trip to another country clearly adds nothing in that respect. The important question is always why this reaction arises in someone.

Perhaps they would like to go too, but do not want to give another person that opportunity. Perhaps they want to experience that state but cannot allow themselves to. Many people cannot, and they protest. I remember buying a Russian wolfhound—my mother is going to get some criticism in this video too. I remember exactly where I was: driving in Los Altos, telling her, “Mom, we have decided to buy a Russian wolfhound.” She said, “Are you out of your mind? What is wrong with you? Do you know what you are doing?” She could not allow herself to do it. I told her, “Stop. We are not discussing the dog anymore. You are not to tell me about any difficulties with dogs in our conversations again.” That dog has caused me no difficulties. It has certainly been easier than organizing this shoot. People think filming is trivial. My mother and wife are hardly interested in how it is organized; they do not see everything behind the scenes.

Organizing the whole process, uploading everything for the editors, publishing it, and doing all the rest—they cannot even imagine it. They act as though they do not understand what it is. They understand dogs a little, and that is where they see difficulties. If I bought chickens, Tanya, you would probably laugh: “Sasha bought ten chickens—or even ten sheep.” If Volchek buys ten sheep, it is probably as simple for him as having a cup of coffee. Just another simple, easy, elementary action among the huge number of things he does. But some actions another person takes are more than they can tolerate, and a state of control arises. So my mother has the right to express her indignation. That is control. What is she controlling—the space, the feeling, me, or something else? My mother obviously has little influence over me in ordinary social life. She would say, “Sasha, how am I controlling you?

“You are over there, and I am over here.” Yet what is it? What would you call it? When this happens between a man and a woman in a family, or with children, the first thing is to pay attention to yourself or to the child experiencing something. What is this energy really? There is a famous saying that one person's freedom ends where another's begins. It sounds wise and philosophically correct, but on closer examination you see a serious mistake and inconsistencies. With genuine freedom, you need to understand that acting freely sets influences in motion, including influences on other people. Can your freedom change another person's life? Can a free action of yours affect someone's life…

Affect other people's lives, their path, and their karmic causes and effects? Can that happen? That is the question to explore. Clearly, through your freedom you can bring about many other changes. Your freedom means responsibility—immense responsibility first and foremost. It is not, “I live freely, and as long as I do not bother anyone, everything is fine.” Not bothering anyone is an abstraction; how do you define or assess it? Some people talk about exercising control over others without touching their freedom or influencing them. That is a major question everyone should examine daily. Yesterday, while we were driving, my daughter started shouting, “Am I not allowed to be emotional?” I said, “You can be emotional, but you must remember there is another person here, and your emotions are not an excuse. You cannot end a conversation just because you start crying. You are crying because you feel sorry for yourself.”

One hundred percent of tears in the world are self-pity—well, ninety-nine percent. The I has compressed the astral body. That is it: tears, self-pity, an underdeveloped spiritual system, I, and astral body. I am not talking about tears when someone stabs you in the leg; there is nothing to discuss there. I mean self-pity arising within. I understand that she is a child, her state and psychological makeup, how our spiritual systems interact, and the whole psychophysical process. I also understand that her spiritual being is a developed spiritual system, not an eleven-year-old girl, Vita Volchek, sharply addressing me from behind. I see what energy she is transmitting. I sent that energy elsewhere so I would not transmit it back to her. I could turn it back on her, and she would feel bad and become ill. Why would I do that? As her father, I am interested in preventing it. So I continued very calmly. Then my wife joined in from the car: “Stop getting on her case.” And off it went.

All of it—a clash of titans. Yes, a clash of titans, the children, everything. In this kind of control, Tanya, the most important thing is to keep the situation under control. That is natural, genuine control. What is real control? Genuine human control grounded in truth means being able to perceive everything. You know it will rain in ten minutes and say, “Sasha, it is going to rain. We need to leave.” Is that control? No, Tanya, it is genuine consciousness. Control is a word close to it. “Good control.” Yes, good control—excellent control. You feel the space: enough now, the energy is about to run out, something needs to change. That is seeing the space. This morning, I led a meditation in the Life group. Afterward I sat down and could not gather myself or say a word. Such a vast flow of energy was moving that I could not speak. I wondered what was happening. I could not read a question; my voice changed and disappeared. I sat there unable to collect myself. What was I trying to do?

I was trying to control the situation naturally, to hold many spaces at once, and I could not. Genuine human control matters greatly. Imagine truly sensing your physical body: knowing whether you need coffee or water, a tomato, buckwheat today, or a break right now. Or knowing that it is better not to enter a particular room because your mood might change, not to drive that day, to stay home, avoid talking to a particular client, or say certain things to them. Is that control, or broad consciousness? Many people with a broad approach and perception are called extreme controllers. They are simply in a genuine state of perception, perceiving a vast amount simultaneously. For them, it is freedom and ease. It takes no time; they feel it and live in it. They are already in those spaces, sensing and seeing them.

“It is always easy.” You were asking about a different kind of person, of course: controllers who keep their employees in a vise and want them endlessly performing only specified actions. People who track their wives' or husbands' locations, listen to their calls, read their private messages, and refuse to give them any freedom. In this case, Tanya, those people have no interest in the other person at all. From outside, it might seem that they are deeply in love or desperately want the person. In reality, they are interested only in themselves. I do not want to sidestep your question; this was the area you asked about. I wanted to show that control also has a healthy side, as with the toilet example. But in the situation you mean, people are interested only in themselves. And they see others as controllers because they are deeply convinced that everyone else is exactly like them.

Some people's nature and system are deeply permeated by the ego-computer. There is the level of shadows described by Valery Lomovtsev: the shadows inside them are in a constant state of agitation. Worlds are present too, of course, but the shadows are continually stirred up. The person remains in an ego state and cannot switch out of it. Some people are in extreme ego at times, then emerge into a powerful flow. Others remain in the ego system endlessly. Remember one simple thing, Tanya: they perceive everyone else as being like themselves. This is a profound truth everyone needs to see, recognize, and accept within themselves: that person on the other side perceives everyone this way. I remember having different perceptions of people and meeting a woman who helped me resolve a business matter involving psychological influence on someone else. She said, “Alexander, you think other people think the way you do.

“That person thinks one, two, three. You think lizard, squirrel, orange. They are different systems of thought. You always expect a squirrel to follow a lizard, but the other person never had a lizard in the first place.” Their measures, thinking, and impulses are different. Some people will never generate an impulse of humanity toward another person, Tanya. Never. Some will never see beauty or truly look into another person's eyes. They will never be moved by the beauty of a painting or an interior, or perceive another person's spiritual world and spaces, those wondrous worlds of stars. They will always see money or a backside, something strange, or endless fear. Some people spend thirty percent of their time in war and fear, like a film playing inside. You wonder what is wrong with them; you think they are ill, stupid, or mocking you. They are not mocking you. That internal cartoon is playing thirty percent of the time, whatever they do.

Some levels have been studied in medicine and psychophysiology; others have not. Some things are invisible or unclear. Judging such a person's perception is like judging the perception of someone who is drunk. They see only themselves. Whatever I explain about their controlling behavior being wrong, they will think I am speaking from their own system of thought and only for my own benefit, because they know they only want things for themselves. When we study other people, the world's rulers, people who run countries or companies and express opinions, we need to look at their motives. What is present within them? What do they actually want? What structures and systems do they have? Then you can truly understand and see another person. A wife can look differently at her husband, and a husband at his wife. If someone watching this video wants to understand it, they have an opportunity to see the other person differently.

At least understand that even the extreme egoists you asked about, Tanya, are afflicted by that system. And distinguish very clearly what love means. I hear so much about love for children, about how someone loves another person. Through what—gifts, actions, time together? Is it control, or spending time…

Or is it spending time for themselves because they need it? I had an experience that may not be the most pleasant example. My wife has read books to the children every evening for fifteen years, since our first child, and still does. A couple of years ago I said, “Polina, I would like to spend some time with the children in the evenings.” “Go ahead.” “I do not have the energy. I cannot do it; I need help. I cannot do it the way you do.” She looked at me and said, “That is your problem,” and went off to read. I said, “I need help with this. I need to spend time with them. I would like something to change, and that means you would have to give up a particular pattern with them.” Her reply opened my eyes to everything; there was no point discussing it further. She said, “Perhaps this is one of the only moments in life that I enjoy.”

At that moment, everything falls into place. She does it for herself. It is her life and her time. That is why it has happened every day for fifteen years. But two of the children no longer listen, so she is not spending that time with them. We could have created a ritual involving all six of us. If the children were what mattered, she would have devised one including the others. But apparently not. This is something the person needs to examine within themselves, and it is not easy. How can I get into it? I cannot even influence it without changing entire worlds within myself. For me, it is one action among others: watering a plant in the evening, making dinner, working on projects, making calls, holding meetings, doing meditations or practices, and a trillion other things.

They occupy roughly the same place in that chain for me.

Calling someone, for instance, or sleeping. I remember someone saying, “I read a lot.” I said, “I do not read much because I choose to spend that time sleeping. I do not read at eleven at night because I am asleep.” You have a choice. Some choose sports, some television, some something else. Everyone chooses. I always say everyone has a choice; I choose sleep. Our children are usually very good about going to bed, but if they are still up at eight thirty and my wife asks, “Are you going to spend time with them?” I think, “Perhaps I should go to bed. I have to get up at six tomorrow.” I always get up at five or six, currently six, and then my meetings begin. I choose to sleep. That is my choice, and I am very aware of it. I do not deceive myself about it. Would I like something different? Wouldn't it be wonderful, Tanya, to learn to remember that the family exists as a whole in the evenings?

Wouldn't that be wonderful? In my family, it was always customary for all of us to have lunch, dinner, and breakfast together.

UPUnidentified participant

Very good.

AVAlexander Volchek

Always. Even after university, when I had started working, my parents and I would come home, and my mother prepared lunch. Polina likes to say, “Your mother did not work; everyone in my family always worked.” But cultivating that quality is wonderful. I would come home, and it was always a wonderful way to spend time. In one sense, it is very easy for me, like putting knives on the table for the children for fifteen years even though they do not use them. The day before yesterday, I told them I would keep putting knives out even if they did not use them. It is interesting: someone might say, “All right, perhaps we will look at that now.” For someone else, Tanya, it is tremendous work; they cannot understand or live through it. That is the essence of family, relationships, and being a man and a woman: trying to understand it together. But we know very well that if someone is deeply stuck in something and unwilling to examine it, it simply will not happen.

That is why it does not happen in our family. Some things can happen only if everyone makes an effort. There is a beautiful saying that if even one person in the world touches the energy of love, they can transform the entire Universe. That is one side. On the other, everyone needs to make an effort. Many things require everyone to act; one person is not enough.