“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
-Joseph Campbell, writer and teacher who studied myths and stories, and how they help us make sense of our own lives.
Every time in my life I’ve tried to force something to happen exactly the way I wanted it to happen, it hasn’t gone that way. Not once. I bet if you look back, you’ll see the same thing in your own life. Have I made things happen? Sure. But, they never happen exactly as planned. Nothing does.
We plan, we script, we rehearse the outcome in our heads. We think, “If I just push a little harder, control a few more details, it’ll go exactly like I see it.” But it never does. Never, never, never exactly as planned.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan. It doesn’t mean we get to sit back and hope life just works out. We still have to work hard, pay attention, care about the details, and show up with everything we’ve got.
It just means there is always something bigger going on than our version of the plan. There’s a calling we can’t quite name. There’s a master plan we don’t get to see yet. Trust me, it can be scary. But, if we insist that things must work out only the way we want them to, life is going to feel really heavy.
The shift is this: do the work, make the plan, take the next right step… and also trust that it’s going to work out the way it’s meant to. Not because we’re passive, but because we’re not the only ones writing this story.
Today, hold your plans a little more loosely. Give your best. And then, with as much faith and hope as you can muster, let life be life. It’s going to be all right.