Thursday, March 23, 2006

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." E.M. Forster


It's amazing to me that, despite all of my planning, so much of my life is made up of the unexpected. Sometimes it's hard for me to let go of all the things I thought my life should be and take hold of what it is. I love how my life has unfolded, yet I hold a saddness over the life that could have been. I imagine that life sometimes. I erase segmets of my journey and fill them with all the plans I made before my life took on a life of it's own. I can not regret any of the steps I have taken because the sum of those steps has led me here, but I must grieve the steps I did not take.

5 comments:

R said...

What a beautiful quote!
I know, feel, understand what you are talking about, and sometimes I feel as if planning the future (at least the way I do it by how many degrees and accomplishments I can stack up) is the devil's own lie, a way of keeping us wishing and not living. It keeps me in a kind of limbo, that I'm not willing to accept anymore, or at least not today. I want to live this moment, to be here, but still hope for the future. I've probably said too much.

Sandra said...

You have not said too much at all. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be enough for me, if I will ever measure up to my idea of what I should be.
I find it difficult to balance between planning tomorrow and living in today. Maybe it's due to the changes that are about to take place in my life. David will be graduating soon and our future hinges on what happens once he's out of school. Not having a solid plan feels like failure to me.

R said...

Yeah, I can relate. We have no solid plan at the moment, either. We'd like to move after the baby, but when? No idea. Where we are Nate makes a good living and we have a place to live. In OK, we have no guarantee of either. I'm not sure I can handle the uncertainty of that with a new baby, or that I want to. Here it would be possible for me to stay home with the baby -- there? I don't know.

As far as being enough for ourselves-- I suppose a little bit of that is good -- keeps us striving.

So, yeah, life is not programmable. I always felt like the biggest fake when the counselors would come in to my classroom and make the kids fill out a five-year plan for their lives. I wanted to scream.

aola said...

Sandy,
The same day you wrote this Stephen at Liquid Thinking wrote a really good post on living in the moment... you ought to go read it... great minds thinking alike :)

Sandra said...

Thanks for letting me know about that post A. It's sometimes very hard for me to live in the moment. It's much easier to escape to my dreams of the future where everythig is as I hope it will be and the mundane tasks of daily living don't exist. I am trying to make each moment sacred though. To realise the beauty that sourrounds me here in this place with these people, and to not worry so much about what tomorrow will bring.