We’re very much a controlling society. We want to make or force things to happen. We decide certain things should happen and we map out our entire lives accordingly: go to X school, start X career, buy a house, get a dog, get married and have 2.5 children, have 2 vacations a year, then retire and move to X city. Well…
“Life is what happens when you’re making plans.” Life gets treated like a To-Do list and it’s not.
Trying to force things to happen is Exactly what keeps them from happening. How many couples, after years of trying to have a child, give up and start the adoption process. Then BAM, they get pregnant.
We can put work into finding out ‘If I want X career this is what I need to do to get there’ but we don’t necessarily put work into finding out Who We Are. For most of us the life we strive for, the life we planned, Isn’t the life we were meant to live. We don’t realize that because we’re too busy forcing our square-peg life into a round hole. ‘It doesn’t fit now but if I Just Keep Pushing….’.
Stop pushing. Temporarily put aside your plans and aspirations and take stock. Do you actually Enjoy that career or is it all about money? Does your life have balance or is your life all about work or living for other people? Were those aspirations even yours to begin with?
Life is not do-or-die. You CAN make adjustments. And make them often. A dress may look nice until you put it on. You don’t buy it just because it’s a nice dress; if it doesn’t fit it doesn’t fit. If something in your life doesn’t fit get rid of it or change it. Who cares what other’s say? This is your life, not theirs. You have to live it 24/7. Why wouldn’t you want your life to be as enjoyable as possible?
We need to have goals and plans so that we have a direction but we shouldn’t be uncompromising in those goals and plans. If life shows us that something even better or different is in store than what we’d envisioned then who are we to argue? Life knows better.
Taishka's Blog 
I chose this term, which is a AA saying, because it perfectly embodies what I wanted to say. Your view on God really has no bearing on the topic, it’s just about letting go, so I don’t see it as a religious reference.
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Interesting thoughts. But my question is “why?” It sounds like life is a random variable and that our lives are random nothingness with no direction whatsoever.
Just my thoughts.
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Hi Chris,
I guess I can start off by saying that this blog is about the apparent experiment called My Life. I’m pretty stubborn so it’s been 40 years of ‘What not to do!’. As I’ve tried to stop being stubborn I’ve seen the world, and my life, in a new light. So these posts are my observations of all the dots I’m connecting. I’ve noticed many other people do some, or many, of the same things that I do so I figured we could all learn together ‘What not to do!’ :) When life has shown me another path, a better path, I’ve stubbornly ignored it after having decided “No, I’m going this way!”. I thought if I didn’t try to plan out my entire future eventually all hell would break loose. This attitude has definitely had me walking many, many miles down the wrong road. Now that I’m more open to letting life show me what’s more appropriate for me I’m Much, much happier. All of the career aspirations I’ve come up with over the years have all been wrong. Letting go of others’ opinions for how we should live is a big part of it too. Someone put into my head I was effed if I didn’t get an education. I’m still struggling to let that go unfortunately. Many successful people have little or no formal education; determination makes success, not education. I’ve paid with my time and money for that opinion. I listened to too many other people and only this past year started listening to myself. So many people are living unhappy lives, working in unhappy jobs, not realizing that it’s Their life. That They can change their life, their career. It might mean less money but you can’t put a price tag on happiness. (I hope that made sense and that I didn’t just ramble.)
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Interesting views – and no, you weren’t rambling. That all made sense. But I’m still wondering what shows you the paths you’ve found (and not found)? It doesn’t sound like random – it sounds like an intelligent force.
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Hello, I just want to mention, I loved this article. This had been inspiring.
Continue on writing!
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I’m very glad to hear that, and thank you!
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Hi, I simply wanted to tell you, I enjoyed this blog
post. This has been inspiring.
Keep on publishing!
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That’s great to hear! And thank you :)
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