What they have been teaching us is wrong. Yes, we do have control over our choices. Why? Because life gave us the freedom to choose. The only downside to this freedom are the insatiable consequences we shall have to face because of the choices we learned to embrace.
I have said so many times to many people on the spiritual path, 'You must be strong in yourself to help others. People who are in the emotional sea need someone who can pull them out, not someone who gets in with them and gets dragged away by the tidal wave of human emotions. We have to become emotional lifeguards.