If I’ve learned anything from the last few years of my life, I’ve learned that the most beneficial way for me to view my life is like an en route express to adventure and the unknown. I learned that I should plan lightly, thinking in terms of “possibly” or “perhaps.” I should write my life in pencil. Pencil that occasionally gets smudged, can be erased or rewritten, and whose final state is not entirely controlled by the writer.
We all have seasons in which we attempt to write our lives in Sharpie. But when we write in Sharpie, we simply divert our attention from the life we are really living to an idolized false life. Always surprised or feeling disgruntled when something happens that we didn’t predict. Feeling like “how dare life throw something at us that we weren’t prepared for.” Since when did we become entitled to the life we planned?
1. Leave room for growth
No one has ever given a hug with closed arms; no one has ever donated money with their fist clenched around their offering; no one has ever been able to accept change with a closed mind.
The tighter we hold onto worldly possessions, accomplishments, and relationships, the more difficult they are to maintain and accept when they change, which they inevitably will.
What if we found strength in knowing that if our house burned down or someone told us that our accomplishments were worthless, that we would be okay? That perhaps, we would even feel relieved. Perhaps we would feel relieved knowing that we no longer have to live a life attempting to maintain our copious amounts of possessions, but rather just live instead.
“You aren't your work, your accomplishments, your possessions, your home, your family... your anything. You're a creation of your Source, dressed in a physical human body intended to experience and enjoy life on Earth." – Wayne Dyer
2. Tempted once again by society's standards
I am not defined by anyone else’s definition of success.
I am not defined by anyone else’s definition of success.
I am not defined by anyone else’s definition of success.
Albert Einstein once said, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
3. Live in each season as it passes
Henry David Thoreau said, “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
Think of yourself as flowing like water with the changes of life. Never contending with the changes that may occur, but rather allowing them to help fill and shape a fluid, flowing, and vibrant life. Living fully in each season embracing changes as they may knowing fully that your plan is not the plan. Our plans are not our strongholds, but rather God is, and plans are to be written with the intention of being free and ever-changing, in pencil.
