"We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so we can have the life that's waiting for us."
I saw this on Twitter today and re-tweeted it. I didn't think much more than "Wow, how inspiring" at first glance.... but then it sank in a bit more.
Somehow we all have this big idea of what our life is supposed to look like. I am guilty of this in an extreme way. I am such a planner. I try to plan every little aspect of my life so that I am not caught off guard. I generally don't like surprises, unless it's something that fits into the box I've made for my life.
Life doesn't really fit into a box, though, does it? I mean, you can't plan the fact that you might get stopped at two extra red lights on your way to work. You can't plan that you might get in a car accident. You can't plan for a death, or to fall in love. You just can't plan everything, even though you (or I) may try. I'm still not sure how to go about changing this, but what seems like it would be logical for some reason isn't to me. It's almost a disconnect.... a control issue, I'm sure.
I feel like if I can just control all the little things in my life I can prevent them from going wrong. I know this isn't true. Bad things happen; things I will never be able to plan for. Good things happen too, though, and if I spend my time planning what I think my life should be I may just miss the good things.
Sure, I may spare myself some heartache and stress by planning ahead to prevent failure, but I'll miss the lesson along the way. How do I know what's around the corner? I don't! And if I keep trying to predict it, I may walk around the corner and stare the next big thing in my life right in the face without even realizing it.
