When I sat down to write this blog the intention was to write about women who love trees. (It was a suggestion from my co-worker Tyler Brown. You have to know him.) Anyway I had it all planned out when all of a sudden I decided to drop that plan. In this moment women who love trees isn’t on my mind. What I’m really contemplating is living life without a plan.
Several years ago before I married my friend Tamara, her mother asked me about my hopes and dreams. I don’t know if she expected me to give her a five year plan, but what came out of my mouth was, “I don’t have hopes and dreams.”
You should’ve seen her face. She probably thought I had to be pretty nuts to say that to my future ex-mother in law’s face, but it was honestly how I felt at the time. To me hopes and dreams slowed Life down.
It’s hard to live in the moment when you are constantly comparing what is actually happening to an idea of what you think should be happening. Plus imagine how much force it takes to keep the rest of your world on your page. And what if you get tired and the whole world falls apart? No, I didn’t want any part of that. It just seemed like too many thoughts.
But, eventually I got caught up like everyone else. After more than a quarter of a century of being questioned for my weird ways, I gave up and tried to “get it done”. And now that I have tried it I have to admit that I was better off without them. Think about it. How many times has Life actually turned out the way you expected it? I bet not too many. And what is the result when things don’t work out how you thought they should? The words “stress” and “frustration” come to mind.
I have had a stressful couple of months with intermittent moments of clarity and smiles intertwined. And when I think about it, those beautiful moments came unexpectedly. They appeared when I needed them and not when I tried to organize them. Even when I was unexpectedly thrown into the apartment market none of my plans worked out. Here I was planning to be here until December when I get a letter telling me I had to fork out more than I could afford.
So we start looking and guess what happens. I can’t find an apartment that suits our needs to save my life. Then with three weeks left and no leads, Kelly and I come across the perfect place in a town I never heard of by way of not paying attention and driving too far down a road I’ve never been on. How can you plan that? That makes me think that I could have skipped the stress of the previous several weeks and just trusted that the place was coming.
Now by saying this I am not saying that people shouldn’t set intentions. I’m just saying that in my opinion hopes and dreams are just a way of us tricking ourselves into believing that we have more control than we actually have. Keep in mind that I make a distinction between influence and control. I just have not experienced any lasting happiness from trying to bend the world to my will. I’m just not that powerful. So I am rededicating my life to living life as it comes and receiving the most from whatever I am facing in the moment.
Categories: The Now
The Roofless Church 
I must say, I can relate wholeheartedly to this post. Sometimes, we as people allow our inherent urge to belong and ultimately blend in, get the best of us. It’s funny, we have distinct fingerprints and ‘free will’ and somehow we seek to blend in and conform to the status quo. lol. Can’t help but chuckle at the irony.
The moment when we observe the synchronicity of all things at work, despite it appearing random to the naked eye, is one of the most incredible epiphanies that one can experience. There is no coincidence, only precision. It’s humbling really. I often laugh at myself when things work out, and then I realize that I was actually in panic mode before things worked out, as they always do. Life doesn’t care about my plan or how I think events should unfold. lol.
Ultimately, the most useful knowledge is the knowledge that I don’t really know anything. Life is about learning to discern between reality and falsehood. It’s an ongoing, perpetual learning process, with stage after stage and cycle after cycle. My plan, or ideology or what have you, at the end of the day, is just a hypothesis at best, an educated guess. So, an open-minded person does not hold on to anything and realizes that all things have a season and that there is always a new perception/understanding on the horizon.
At the end of the day, as u said, there is a Master Plan at work and all we can do is flow with it, or go against it and get crushed and upset. The Master Plan will happen and if my plan doesn’t coincide, it won’t happen in the way that I planned it. So, I totally feel u on just flowing. I do dream, but I do not necessarily try to plan how I will acheive my dreams. I just visualize and go with the flow. Peace.
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This insightful post aptly captures the paradigm shift between resignation and fortitude. A proverb says, “a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord orders his steps.” This means that there is a plan in place that supercedes anything we can ask or imagine. It’s larger, more intricate, more comprehensive, purposely submiminal, and infinitely wiser than anything we can dream up with our finite understanding. Think of human beings, tossed up and down daily by emotional vicissitudes or transforming interests. How can we know enough to plan our own lives down to the minutest details? We’ve just got to navigate life with the cards we were dealt, pressing onward, even when it hurts (and it can really hurt). I dream, I envision, I hope – but much like the disclaimer at the bottom of the Sunday bulletin, I tell myself, “all plans subject to change by the Holy Ghost.”
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I just want to copy and paste what I noted before. In order to receive, you gotta let go. Miracles are there waiting. Don’t ‘wait’ for God to give them to you. It’s already there. God is the One waiting for you to let go and receive them. Let’s let go of all worries.
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“Missions are stupid, Tereza. I have no mission, No one has. And it’s a a terrific relief to realize you’re free, free of all missions.”
-U.L.B
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I think you can find peace in Life if you accept that everything created in the outside world is like working on a house of cards or building a sand castle. If you can be like a kid and enjoy the creative process and realize that it’s all coming down eventually, you’ll be ready start back up when it does. Heck, you might even knock it down yourself just so you can start over with something new. Remembering this is the challenge.
Tear the roof off!
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Thanks for a great reead
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Thanks for taking the time to read it and comment.
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