The Open Hand and the Closed Hand: Two Twins, Two Lives, and the Power of What We Choose to Control
What if the difference between a life of fear and a life of abundance has less to do with what happens to us and more to do with how we choose to respond?
We spend much of our lives trying to control things that were never ours to control. We try to control other people’s opinions, decisions, feelings, and behaviour. We fight against disappointment, resist change, hold on to the past, and worry about a future that has not yet arrived.
And in doing so, we often overlook the one thing we have the greatest opportunity to influence: ourselves.
To understand this, let me tell you a story about twins named Helen and Jacques. They were born on the same day, raised by the same parents, and grew up in the same town. They shared the same childhood, the same family experiences, and many of the same challenges.
Yet, by the age of forty-five, their lives looked remarkably different.
Not because one had been given a better life, but because they had learned to approach life in very different ways.
One lived with an open hand. The other lived with a closed hand.
And the difference changed almost everything.
Two Twins, Two Different Perspectives
Helen was a woman who had learned to accept that life would not always unfold according to her expectations. She experienced disappointment, loss, uncertainty, and fear, just as everyone else did. But she had developed a particular understanding of life: she could not control everything that happened to her, but she could take responsibility for how she responded.
She understood that she could influence her circumstances without having complete control over the outcome.
Jacques, her twin brother, saw things differently.
He believed that if he worked hard enough, planned carefully enough, and tried hard enough, he should be able to make life unfold according to his expectations.
He wanted certainty. He wanted people to behave in ways that made sense to him. He wanted relationships without disappointment, success without failure, and a future without unpleasant surprises.
When things went wrong, he became frustrated. When people disagreed with him, he felt the need to prove his point. When circumstances changed unexpectedly, he fought against them.
Jacques believed he was being responsible.
But much of his energy was being consumed by something he could never achieve: complete control over life.
Helen and Jacques were pursuing the same things that most human beings want: love, security, happiness, connection, and a sense that their lives mattered.
The difference was in how they tried to achieve them.
The Open Hand and the Closed Hand
When they were children, their mother had taught them a simple lesson.
She would ask them to close their hands into fists.
“Imagine you are trying to hold on to everything you love,” she would say. “You want to keep the people you care about close, prevent anything bad from happening, and make sure that nothing ever changes.”
Then she would ask them to squeeze their fists tightly.
“What happens when you hold on too tightly?”
Their little hands would begin to hurt.
“And what happens when you open your hand?”
They would relax their fingers.
Their mother would smile.
“Now you have room to receive something new.”
For Helen, the lesson became a way of understanding life. An open hand represented trust, acceptance, love, and the willingness to allow life to unfold without demanding control over every detail.
For Jacques, however, an open hand represented vulnerability. He believed that if he loosened his grip, something important might slip away.
And so the twins grew up carrying two different interpretations of the same lesson.
Helen learned to open her hand.
Jacques learned to make a fist.
Neither realised how deeply that difference would influence their future.
The Same Town, Different Experiences
At forty-five, Helen lived in a modest home with a garden full of flowers, a large tree, and a wooden table where friends and family often gathered.
Her garden was not perfect. Some flowers flourished, while others struggled. Sometimes the weather damaged her plants, and sometimes things grew in places she had never intended.
But Helen understood that she could create the conditions for growth without controlling every outcome.
She watered the plants, tended the soil, and accepted that not everything would grow as she hoped.
Jacques lived on the other side of town in a larger house with a beautifully maintained garden.
His lawn was immaculate. His hedges were perfectly trimmed, and everything had its place.
Yet he struggled to enjoy it.
A patch of brown grass could ruin his morning. A neighbour’s tree dropping leaves over his wall could irritate him for hours. When a contractor arrived late, he would spend the evening complaining about the inconvenience.
Helen’s garden gave her joy, despite its imperfections.
Jacques’s garden gave him frustration, despite its beauty.
The difference was not in the gardens.
It was in their expectations.
Helen understood that she could care for her garden without controlling every leaf.
Jacques believed that if he cared enough, worked hard enough, and paid enough attention, he should be able to prevent anything from going wrong.
Helen participated in life.
Jacques tried to manage it.
And life kept reminding him that he was not in charge of nearly as much as he believed.
When Life Says No
One morning, Helen received a phone call informing her that her position at work was being discontinued because of a company restructuring.
She was shocked. She was frightened. She worried about her expenses, her plans, and what the future might hold.
Helen was not immune to fear. She did not pretend that losing her job was a blessing.
But after allowing herself to feel the initial disappointment, she sat down with a notebook and asked herself two questions.
What can I control?
She could update her CV, contact people in her network, review her finances, ask for advice, and look for new opportunities.
What can I not control?
She could not reverse the company’s decision. She could not guarantee that another employer would hire her. She could not determine how quickly she would find work or what opportunities would become available.
The first question gave her direction.
The second gave her permission to stop fighting what had already happened.
Helen began taking practical steps to move forward.
Jacques, when he heard the news, reacted very differently.
“How can they do that to you?” he demanded. “After everything you’ve done for them? You need to challenge this. You cannot just accept it!”
Helen explained that she had asked for an explanation and would consider her options.
But Jacques continued to worry about every possible outcome. He imagined financial hardship, disappointment, and failure. He spent days discussing the unfairness of the situation.
He was trying to help his sister, but he was also carrying a burden that was not his to carry.
Helen was making a plan.
Jacques was fighting reality.
And reality was not even aware of the fight.
This is something many of us do. We confuse worrying with preparing, and we confuse resisting an unwanted outcome with doing something useful about it.
But worrying does not automatically create solutions. Sometimes it simply takes the energy we need to find them.
The Closed Hand of Fear
Jacques’s need for control became particularly visible in his relationship with Anna, the woman he loved.
He wanted their relationship to last. He wanted to know that she loved him, that she was committed to him, and that she would never leave.
These were understandable desires.
But his desire for security gradually became a demand for certainty.
He wanted to know where Anna was, who she was talking to, why she had taken so long to respond to a message, and what she meant when she said she needed some time to herself.
When she was quiet, he assumed something was wrong. When she disagreed with him, he wondered whether she still respected him. When she made plans without him, he felt excluded.
He was afraid of losing her, but he struggled to admit that fear.
Instead of saying, “I’m afraid of losing you,” he accused her of not caring.
Instead of saying, “I need reassurance,” he demanded explanations.
Instead of admitting that he felt vulnerable, he became angry.
He was trying to protect his heart by closing his hand around the woman he loved.
But a closed hand cannot hold love gently.
The tighter he held on, the less room Anna had to breathe. The less room she had to breathe, the more distant she became. And the more distant she became, the more convinced Jacques grew that he needed to hold on even tighter.
He was creating the very experience he feared.
Helen understood that love could not be guaranteed through control.
She knew that she could offer honesty, kindness, loyalty, and commitment. She could communicate her needs, establish boundaries, and decide what she would or would not accept.
But she could not own another person’s choices.
She could not guarantee that somebody would never disappoint her.
She could not make another person love her by being perfect.
Helen did not love less than Jacques. She simply understood that love required a willingness to be vulnerable.
Love is not the ability to guarantee that you will never be hurt. It is the willingness to love without trying to control another person’s freedom.
Abundance Is Not About How Much You Have
People in their town often assumed that Jacques was the more successful twin.
He had the larger house, the newer car, and the more impressive business. From the outside, his life looked successful.
Helen had less money and lived more modestly.
Yet people who spent time with both twins noticed something interesting.
Helen seemed to have more.
She had time to listen to a neighbour who was grieving. She could celebrate another person’s success without comparing it to her own. She enjoyed ordinary moments and appreciated the people who made an effort to be part of her life.
She did not need somebody else’s life to become smaller for her own life to feel meaningful.
Jacques struggled with comparison.
When a friend earned more money, he wondered what that person had that he lacked. When a colleague received recognition, he questioned whether his own contribution was being overlooked. Even when things were going well, he worried about losing what he had.
He had money, but he worried about losing it.
He had a home, but he worried about its value.
He had a business, but he worried about competitors.
He had people who loved him, but he worried about whether their love would last.
His life contained many things, yet his mind was consumed by lack.
Helen’s life was not free from difficulty, but she could recognise what was already present.
She appreciated the food on her table, the conversations that made her laugh, the people who cared about her, and the opportunities she still had.
She continued to work towards a better future, but she did not postpone her gratitude until everything was perfect.
This is where we often misunderstand abundance.
Abundance is not simply having more. It is also the capacity to recognise, appreciate, share, and receive what is already available.
Lack is not simply having less. It can also be the persistent belief that what you have is never enough, that who you are is never enough, and that peace will only arrive when you finally secure everything you want.
Helen was learning to receive life.
Jacques was exhausting himself trying to secure it.
When We Cannot Control the Outcome
The greatest challenge the twins faced came when their mother became seriously ill.
They took turns visiting her in hospital.
Helen sat beside her mother’s bed, held her hand, and talked about ordinary things. She knew that her mother was unwell and that the future was uncertain.
She could not guarantee recovery, but she could be present.
She could offer comfort, ask questions, listen, and make sure her mother knew she was loved.
Jacques found the experience unbearable.
He wanted the doctors to tell him exactly what would happen. He questioned every change in treatment and searched for information late into the night.
“Surely somebody must know what’s going to happen,” he said one evening.
Helen looked at him.
“I wish they did.”
“How can you sit there so calmly? This is our mother!”
“I know,” Helen replied. “I’m doing what I can. But I cannot make her body do what I want it to do. I cannot promise her that she will recover. And I cannot make the doctors know something they don’t know.”
Jacques shook his head.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
“Neither can I,” Helen answered. “But being unable to control the outcome doesn’t mean there is nothing left for us to do.”
A few days later, their mother died.
Helen grieved deeply. She cried, missed her mother, and struggled with the emptiness that followed her death.
Acceptance did not make her loss painless.
It did not mean that she wanted her mother to die, or that she was happy with what had happened.
It meant that she understood the loss had occurred and that she would have to learn how to live in the reality that remained.
Jacques responded differently.
He was angry that his mother had died. He questioned the decisions that had been made and replayed the final days in his mind.
What if they had gone to the hospital sooner?
What if they had asked another question?
What if they had chosen another treatment?
Some questions were worth investigating. But Jacques became trapped in an endless search for a different past.
He was trying to negotiate with something that could no longer be changed.
Helen eventually told him, “We both loved her. We both wanted her to stay. But we cannot turn our love for her into a fight against the fact that she is gone.”
Jacques looked away.
“I just don’t know how to accept it.”
“You don’t have to know how to accept all of it today,” Helen said gently. “Just stop demanding that yesterday become different before you allow yourself to live today.”
Her words stayed with him.
For the first time, Jacques began to understand that he had confused control with responsibility.
He had believed that if he could not change the outcome, he was powerless.
Helen was showing him that he could be powerless over an outcome and still have power in his response.
Learning to Open His Hand
In the months following their mother’s death, Jacques began to notice how often he tried to control things that were beyond his reach.
He noticed it when somebody disagreed with him.
He noticed it when plans changed.
He noticed it when Anna made a decision he did not understand.
He noticed it when a business opportunity failed.
He began asking himself a different question.
Instead of asking, “How do I make this situation go the way I want?” he began asking, “What is mine to do in this situation?”
The question changed his perspective.
He could not control every client, competitor, or economic change, but he could improve the quality of his work.
He could not control Anna’s feelings, but he could communicate honestly, listen, and take responsibility for his own behaviour.
He could not undo the past, but he could learn from it.
He could not guarantee that nothing would go wrong, but he could become better at responding when things did.
Jacques began to understand that power did not mean making life obey him.
It meant recognising where his choices mattered and using that influence wisely.
His relationship with Anna slowly improved. He began speaking about his fears rather than disguising them as anger. They learned to communicate more honestly, even when they disagreed.
His business did not suddenly become more successful, but he stopped treating every lost opportunity as a personal defeat.
He became more willing to learn, adapt, and try again.
His circumstances did not immediately become easier.
But his relationship with those circumstances began to change.
And that change gave him energy he had previously spent on worry, resentment, and frustration.
He was beginning to open his hand.
The Difference Between Acceptance and Giving Up
Jacques still had questions.
“If I accept what I cannot control,” he asked Helen one afternoon, “how do I know I’m not just giving up?”
Helen took a piece of paper and divided it into two columns.
On the first, she wrote: What is mine to do.
On the second, she wrote: What is not mine to decide.
“If you are unhappy in your job, you can look for another one. If you have hurt someone, you can apologise. If you have made a mistake, you can learn from it. If a situation is unjust, you can speak up and work towards changing it.”
She pointed to the second column.
“But you cannot guarantee that you will get the job you want. You cannot force someone to accept your apology. You cannot go back and prevent every mistake. And you cannot guarantee that every effort to change a situation will succeed.”
Jacques studied the page.
“So I must still act?”
“Absolutely.”
“And I must still care?”
“Of course.”
“Even if I cannot guarantee the outcome?”
Helen smiled.
“Especially then.”
The open hand was not a symbol of weakness. It did not mean tolerating abuse, abandoning ambition, or avoiding responsibility.
An open hand could still build, create, work, protect, and defend. It could establish boundaries and refuse what was harmful.
But it did not need to close into a fist around every outcome.
We are responsible for our choices, but we do not have complete control over their consequences.
We can influence life without owning it.
And sometimes the wisest thing we can do is to take the next responsible step without demanding certainty about where it will lead.
Helen’s Own Challenge
It would be easy to think that Helen had mastered life.
But she, too, had moments when she wanted to close her hand.
When her daughter announced that she was considering moving to another province for work, Helen felt a quiet sadness.
She wanted her daughter to succeed, but she also knew what the change would mean. There would be fewer visits, more distance, and another adjustment to a life that was already changing.
Her first instinct was to ask a hundred questions.
Was it safe? Had her daughter considered the cost of living? What if it did not work out?
Some questions were practical. Others were fear disguised as concern.
Helen recognised the difference.
She offered advice where it was useful, asked questions that would help her daughter make an informed decision, and then did something that was harder than giving advice.
She listened.
Her daughter was an adult with her own hopes, fears, and right to make decisions.
Helen could not live her daughter’s life for her. She could not remove every risk from the road ahead.
But she could make sure her daughter knew she would always have someone to call, a place to return to, and a mother who would love her regardless of whether every decision turned out perfectly.
Helen felt sad after the conversation. She allowed herself to feel that sadness.
Then she reminded herself that love was not ownership.
Sometimes love meant loosening your grip so another person could grow.
The open hand was not a single decision made once in childhood. It was a choice Helen had to make repeatedly throughout her life.
Two Twins, One Lesson
On the anniversary of their mother’s death, Helen and Jacques met outside the family home where they had grown up.
The house had been sold, and the new owners had changed the garden. The old table beneath the window was gone.
Jacques took a photograph from his pocket. It showed their mother sitting between them when they were children.
“Do you remember what she used to say about our hands?” he asked.
Helen smiled.
“Every time we wanted to hold on too tightly.”
Jacques looked down at his hands.
“I thought that if I held on tightly enough, I could stop life from hurting me. I thought I could protect the people I loved by making sure they did the right things.”
He paused.
“But I was always afraid. Even when things were going well, I was afraid of losing them.”
Helen reached for his hand.
“And now?”
“Now I’m learning that I can care about something without controlling it. I can work for something without demanding that it happen. I can love someone without making them responsible for all my fears.”
He looked at her.
“I wish I had understood it earlier.”
Helen squeezed his hand.
“Perhaps we understand things when we are ready to live them.”
They stood together for a moment, remembering their mother.
Then Jacques asked, “Do you think one of us was right and the other was wrong?”
Helen considered the question.
“I think we both wanted the same things. Love, security, happiness, connection, and a sense that our lives mattered. We both wanted to protect what we loved and avoid pain.”
She paused.
“But we chose different ways of trying to get there.”
Helen had learned that she could not prevent every loss, but she could choose how she lived with loss.
Jacques had believed that if he fought hard enough, he could prevent the things he feared.
Both had encountered the same world. Both had experienced disappointment. Both had loved people they could not keep forever.
But the meanings they gave to their experiences had shaped the lives they built.
Helen’s open hand had made room for acceptance, connection, gratitude, and change.
Jacques’s closed hand had often made room for fear, resentment, comparison, and exhaustion.
Until, slowly, he began to open it.
What Will You Choose Today?
Helen and Jacques began life together. They shared the same beginning, but they did not build the same experience of living.
Their story reminds us that the quality of our lives is shaped not only by what happens to us, but also by the way we respond to what happens.
We can control our intentions, our efforts, our choices, our words, our boundaries, and how we respond to many of life’s challenges.
We can influence our relationships, careers, opportunities, habits, and the environments we create.
But we cannot completely control other people’s thoughts, feelings, decisions, or behaviour. We cannot guarantee every outcome. We cannot undo the past, eliminate all uncertainty, or prevent every experience of pain.
The question is not whether life will give us reasons to close our hands.
It will.
The question is what we choose to do when those reasons arrive.
Will we grip tighter, fight harder, blame more, fear more, and demand that life become something it is not?
Or will we recognise what is ours to do, release what is not ours to decide, and make the best possible choice with what remains?
An open hand does not guarantee an easy life. It does not prevent disappointment or loss. But it can create room for acceptance, love, learning, gratitude, and new possibilities.
A closed hand tries to keep life from taking anything away.
An open hand understands that life is not something we can possess. It is something we experience, learn from, share, and sometimes allow to change.
Perhaps the greatest freedom we will ever discover is not the power to control everything around us.
Perhaps it is the wisdom to know what is ours to carry, what is ours to change, and what we must finally release.
Because the choice is waiting for us every single day.
Not yesterday. Not someday. Today.
A Question for Reflection
What are you holding on to today that is beyond your control?
Is it another person’s decision? A past disappointment? A fear about the future? A need to be right? Or an expectation that life must unfold according to your plans?
Take a moment to notice where you are closing your hand.
Then ask yourself:
What can I control? What can I influence? What must I accept? And what would change if I approached this situation with an open hand instead of a closed fist?
You may not be able to change everything that happens to you.
But you can begin changing the way you meet it.
And sometimes, that is where a different life begins.
About the Author
Gerald Crawford is a South African author, educator, healer, guide, and certified clinical hypnosis practitioner. His work explores personal responsibility, emotional awareness, healing, relationships, and the choices that shape our everyday lives.
Visit GeraldCrawford.co.za to explore more of his work.
If this story resonated with you, share it with someone who may need the reminder that we cannot control everything in life, but we can choose how we respond.y
