“because when nothing’s for sure, anything can happen.” – Casey Neistat
Upon reading this quote, I found myself taking a step back and thinking about my own calculated life in regards to this.
As an extreme planner, I have become accustomed to creating a plan for the day, the following week, through the month and into the next. I realized that I spend so much of my time planning, that I am missing what’s going on right now. As important as it is to make wise choices and plan for the future, this quote has sparked the recognition that living in the moment is so much more important, as hard as it may be to grasp that concept (at least for me).
I have become meticulous about making to-do lists daily, I run through a pad of post-it notes at an embarrassing rate. BUT- as careful of a planner that I am, I live for the moments in my life that are purely spontaneous. I can’t think of time that I’ve looked back and thought about how much fun I had planning my week out. Actually, it’s stressful. This is why I have taken the initiative to start living in the moment a little more and to stress a lot less.
Why stress about something that can’t be controlled? I have fallen into the unfortunate habit of trying to predict and plan for a specific outcome, and find that I am often disappointed because things did not go as I had anticipated. And now I think to myself, “How stupid is that?” I can’t tell the future and neither can any of you, although a lot of the time I like to believe that I have this ability. So… why spend so much time on it when I can be focused on enjoying what I’m doing right now?
Life has a beautiful way of throwing new things at us when we least expect it, and a lot of the time these moments end up being our greatest memories. What’s to come is currently an untold story, that can only be read one day at a time. This is why it’s so important to enjoy what life is throwing at you today. Not tomorrow, not yesterday. The past cannot be changed, the future holds an adventure that is waiting for you, and today holds no promises. Even typing that scares me a little bit, I look for concrete answers to questions that are so ambiguous. This wish of knowing what’s to come next needs to be diminished to make room for the mindset that the present deserves our attention.
By worrying about what’s to come next, we are limiting ourselves in all of the amazing things that have the potential to happen when we are spontaneous. This is why I have taken the initiative to stop being so invested in the future “because when nothing’s for sure, anything can happen,” and that’s so exciting to me.
