It is easy in this fast-paced day and age to move on to the next thing without being fully present in the current moment. I am guilty of this too--always projecting forward to what my future will look like and how it will undoubtedly be better than my current state. One thing that I forget is that I have been doing this for my whole life. Were I back in high school, I would have believed that my current life would be less stressful. Ha!
It’s just like that Twenty One Pilots song, “Out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the latter.” Why did I think this was going to be easier? Is the stress different? Yes. But still stressful, and arguably the stress is more important (if that’s a thing) because I am no longer worried about setting up the next four years of my life, but rather the next 50. Or, at least that’s how I perceive it.
If there is one thing that I have learned, it’s that life will not go as planned. No amount of preparation can accommodate life’s inevitable twists and turns. I have learned I am actually not planning for the next 50 years of my life, because I have many experiences and opportunities that I have yet to discover; thus, I can’t plan for them. Instead, I am living my life for what I think will best set me up to achieve my current goals. Not a plan--more like an outline.
If we stay regimented to the perception of a “plan,” we will constantly be disappointed. We will constantly experience failure. However, how we truly fail is by not realizing that each time our lives don't go according to “plan,” we adapt. We are still living, aren’t we? And probably in the time since that change in trajectory, we have become happy again. We now reminisce on that time in the past where things didn’t turn out the way we expected as something that we have overcome, rather than something that we failed at.
Each life stage will have its own triumphs and trials. However, in these ever-changing times, we may find that what we thought were insignificant moments turned out to have the biggest impact on our lives. If we are constantly moving on to the next thing, we will miss life, even if it is staring us straight in the face. So, take a deep breath and realize that if you change your mind, you can adapt. You have done it before and you will most likely do it thousands of times in the future. You are growing as a person and you are allowed to change. Forgive yourself and appreciate yourself, set goals and work to achieve them. Be flexible by living in the moment; don’t let it pass you by. Experience it, because the future will come soon enough.
“Sometimes, we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how to feel, stop deciding exactly what we want, and just see what happens.” -Carrie Bradshaw
