What if?

I wrote this post about two weeks ago.
It just didn’t feel right to post it yet.
Today it feels right.

A little while ago I wrote about the feeling when something or someone comes into our lives and makes us forget about our plans. The plans that we make so carefully just to ensure that nothing upstets us too much or excites us too much.

Every day I am faced with plans. With my own plans and with those of other peole. It is normal and gives life a certain framework. We have our short-term plans that help us get through the day and long-term plans for our lives and even for the lives of others.

I often get asked questions like: Where are you planning to go? How long are you planning to stay? What are you planning to do? – Be it in work, love, friendship or any other part of life.

Sometimes I try and give answers to these questions.
Sometimes I simply say: “I don’t know” and nothing more.

Usually the response to that is : “Oh yes, that’s right. Just see where life takes you. We never know anyway.” But I still see that puzzled look on the persons face as they turn away. They don’t know how to respond. Because they don’t have anything to hold on to.
But it is not just others. I also find myself asking the exact same questions about my own life. And I have the same puzzled look on my face when I don’t get an answer.

Plans help us to get through life when everything goes smothly. Linear – like we (for some obscure reason) expect life to be. But what if something unexpected happens?
It might just be a glimpse of something new that we integrate into our lives as one of those special moments.But what if it screws up our plans? And we find ourselves in a situation we never expected? It might bring us feelings we never knew existed. Feelings of endless joy or endless sadness or even both.

What ever it is that suddenly makes us question our plans, we will never be prepared. And in times like that we rarely receive understanding and empathy for our feelings. Not because our friends, partners or family don’t love us but because no one is prepared. No one knows how to deal with us.

Although each and every one of us has experienced such sudden unsettling changes we have not learned how to receive them. We re-act. Sometimes with resistance, sometimes with withdrawl. We struggle until we have rearranged our plans according to the new circumstances. And then we wait – until the next unexpected event hits us and unsettles our plans again.

This will work for a while and we might believe we are handling our lives well. But from inside it slowly starts to drain us. We become tired and close our hearts.

What if there is a way to learn to embrace the surprise and uncertainty that life has to offer? What if we can learn to let go of our attachment to a particular outcome and find a spirit that allows us to live life the way it really is?