I have no idea what’s going to happen in four months. Or three weeks. Or in two days. Hell. I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.
I don’t have a plan. I vaguely have a general outline. Why? Because we can’t plan for the future. We don’t know for sure that our future is even secure. Anything can happen in the next couple of months. Even seconds.
A giant meteor can strike the earth and kill us all like it did the dinosaurs or nothing can happen and we continue on with our daily lives. But that’s my point. We never know. And chances are we never will know.
It’s great to have your life mapped out and planned out, but what happens when it doesn’t go as planned? What happens when shit hits the fan? What do we do when life decides to play one of its sick jokes on us?
Truth is, we’re never going to be ready for those moments.
We plan all this great stuff out in our head, our agendas, and planners, but who’s to say that it’s actually going to work out that way? What if one day you wake up, and life as you know it has completely gone bottoms up. At this point, we can’t afford to panic because we’re not kids anymore. We cannot go run to our parents for the answers. We have to figure this stuff out on our own.
It’s fantastic and I applaud those people who plan for the future.
You know, those people who plan to be married by 23, three kids by 29 - all back to back and close in age. Retired by 50 and living in Costa Rica by 55. Sounds like a hell of a life to me, but what if, just if, you don’t find a partner by 23? What if you can’t have kids back to back? Or even kids in general. These things happen and we really have no control over that.
These plans have a way of changing themselves too - the dream job you want is in New York, but corporate decides to send you to Kansas. Sorry, Dorothy, but you’re stuck now and the plan has been thrown out the window.
This is really in no way to be a pessimist, but what is the point of planning for the future when the future isn’t certain. When the future isn’t secure and your plans aren’t foolproof and set in stone.
It’s always so much better to take everything day by day.
Live in the moment and stop stressing about what’s to come in the future. Work hard for what you want but always keep in mind that plans always change no matter how convinced you are that they won’t.
Think back to a few years ago, are you in the place where you planned to be? Where you envisioned yourself? Probably not, because things tend to not go as planned. And that’s okay. Take a moment to smell the roses, relax, take a breath of fresh air and instead of stressing out about the future. Don’t.
