Expecting the Unexpected
“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.”
Carl Sandburg
I was awakened last night by a storm; lightening zinging down followed by loud cracks of thunder. Julie began to vibrate and Liza ran under the bed, barking. A lightening storm is as unexpected in January as a snowfall in June, but there it was. This morning everything outside is scrubbed clean.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a control freak. I like to know what’s coming down the pike. I check the time, the news and the weather. I like to plan ahead and chart my course. It gives me an erroneous sense that I’m in control of my life. No unpleasant surprises need apply. And yet, many of the good things that have happened to me have been unexpected, due mostly to being in the right place at the right time. I'll bet that's true for you, too.
Sometimes we just have to let go and see where the road leads us. It requires a basic level of trust that life is essentially good and that we are cradled in the bosom of the universe. Well—maybe not cradled—but we are at least a strand in the great web. Life is an experiment, and we are here to observe outcomes. We can try to control them, but that is something like holding a butterfly in a tight fist—the outcome is not going to be exactly what we had planned.
I’m not suggesting that we go through life with no goals. We should always have high aspirations. It’s just that we should leave some space between the goalposts for grace to come in. Oscar Wilde said, “To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” I say, make a plan, master the obstacles along the way, and take pleasure in unexpected outcomes.
Shalom,
Jane
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