Find your own road...
You don’t always need a plan. Wait… what?! You read that correctly, you don’t always need a plan. There doesn’t always have to be a time table or schedule. There is no life manual that explains when, where and how you will achieve your goals. My only question, how come no one made me understand this concept 20 years ago?
In my 20’s and into my 30’s, I had this idealistic dream plan of a married life with 2 kids, house with a 2 car garage… the white picket fence life. I had a very directed plan of how to achieve that and never took the time to live my life enough to know what really made me happy. Instead I married, had my two kids, and bought a house all by the age of 24; and I was miserable. In relatively quick fashion, I divorced. I lost the house and became the single mom of two beautiful little girls. My plan of the perfectly married, white picket fence life never changed and that plan caused an almost 20 year battle of bad relationships, another failed marriage, and way too many tears for a woman who still couldn’t tell you what truly made her life happy.
Flash forward to today. I’m looking 40 right in the eye and trying so hard to embrace that age as it rapidly approaches. What life experiences have I really learned about planning everything out? Life is what happens while we’re busy making plans. I threw my “life plan” out the window and started fresh with just a basic outline.
For starters, I got my own picket fence. It may not be white, and it may not be perfect but it’s mine. There are no plans of a ring on my hand anytime in the near future. If it happens that would be awesome. If it doesn’t, I accept that my destiny may just be to teach others how to love after their own hearts have been broken. More importantly, I’ve learned that plans should be viewed more as a guide opposed to something inflexible and set in stone. While I still hate surprises and I am working on being comfortable with accepting the unknown. I have learned that the worst thing you can do is set yourself up for failure by trying to conform to some set out plan, that only sounded good in theory. I’ve learned I will never be one of those who can just go where the wind takes me. There needs to be a direction in everything I do, but just like when driving to work, road construction and speed bumps can quickly change the plan of how I get there.
Gone is the mythical planned timeline of when I “should” achieve things in my life. I’m almost 40 and have just recently started a new career. I started working on my physical health again and I have spent much needed time re-centering and re-focusing on the happiness that is my life. I am an adult in college and work daily with people who are the same age as my children. Working with younger people has already taught me how much I respect them for following their own goals and aspirations. I have proven to myself that it is never too late to change your plan and start over. I have set goals and found my direction; those two combined keep me driven.
The more I have let go of the idealistic plans of what I “should” be doing or what “should” happen for me to be happy, the happier I have actually become. Find what makes you happy first, use that as your compass and follow the direction that happiness leads.
#BeYou #LoveYourselfFirst #LoveYourselfMore