I approach life with a very different attitude than most. By that, I mean I prefer running and jumping off a cliff into the wild unknown. I believe there is something special about not knowing what’s next. However, just because I don’t know where I’m going doesn’t mean I’m comfortable. My heart is racing wildly and I definitely scream on the way down, but I know that I’m going to (metaphorically) fly. I find comfort in the adrenaline because it feels human to be nervous and excited. Feeling the thrill and trusting the fall is how I choose to live.
Image via Austin Neill on Unsplash
Now let’s do a complete one-eighty and think about the alternative. The one-year, five-year, ten-year plans all perfectly fit into an excel spreadsheet that has been color-coded. Life’s in order. Everything has a space. There are no surprises because the comfort is in the control. You know exactly where you are going and don’t have to worry — until that plan gets uprooted.
Here’s my honest opinion about life plans: if you need one, you need one. If you don’t, you don’t. With each side of the extreme, they are both potential roads to disaster. If you float around life with no plan except where the wind takes you, you don’t have anywhere to go. For a woman like me who has dreams and ambitions, those can get derailed quickly if I haven’t plotted some kind, of course, to get there. However, if you barrel through life with every step of the way planned out, those plans could turn to dust with one fork in the road. You cannot predict every outcome, and you can’t live life passively.
We are all individuals, and that’s our greatest strength. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but we can all have values we chose to live by. I choose to believe the universe has a plan for me. Therefore, I prefer following where I think I should go. Others know there is a plan but believe it is their duty to actively make it as they go. What do you believe?
Remember when we were all little kids and Peter Pan taught us how to fly? “Faith, trust, and pixie dust!” We all have faith in the world to carry us. We all trust ourselves to get to where we want to go. Pixie dust is that bit of life. We don’t know how it works because it’s magic. Life is magical, let yourself experience it.