Make plans, stay open ~ breathe

 

 

A wise older friend told me that life became a lot easier for her once she began to see the humor in it all.  A nugget of enlightenment that hit  somewhere in her early to mid 80s.

It dawned on this, just this a.m., that another bit of aha awareness that needs age to break upon us is that the most monumental moments in our lives are usually NOT the ones we plan, but the ones that arrive apparently unbeckoned. 

Which is not to say that we should live hurly burly lives, waiting for glorious moments to arrive out of the blue.  It was the great Louis Pasteur (one of my heroes) who said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”  Not as in “wealth,” but as in “chance.”  Aha moments are more likely to happen to the minds prepared to receive them.  

That’s a pretty hefty idea from one of the most accomplished humans to ever grace the planet.  Pasteur gave credit where credit was due – to the whims of Fate, that presented to the curious, informed mind dots & dashes of potential inspiration.  It is the mind receptive to experiencing the AH HA! that moves them forward from flash of insight to wondrous discovery.  In Pasteur’s case, to discovering the principles of vaccine (saving France’s wool industry), microbial fermentation (saving France’s wine industry), the germ theory (saving… well, unimagined numbers of lives), and pasteurization.   Brilliant, yes – but open to seeing inspiration in unexpected places.

John Lennon said that life happens while we’re making other plans.  “While we’re making other plans” is core.  The Beatles didn’t just burst upon the scene, weren’t overnight wonders.  They paid their dues, big time.  When opportunity arrived, they were ready.  

The older I get, the clearer it is that my life takes amazing twists & turns that could never have been imagined.  At this time of year, coming up on the fifteen anniversary of Mom’s fall in Alexandria, VA (where she was going to host a brunch for family & friends in the area), am reminded of how I’d assumed that after her death I’d double down on my corporate success, only to discover that Life had other plans.  Or, as I describe it, the Universe said to me, “Really?  You didn’t realize that all that came before was training for your REAL work?  Strange.”

I was blessed to be able to see the absurd & accept unexpected opportunity.  In October 2001, a couple weeks after Mom's death, I returned to work.  Little did I know when I walked through the front door that I’d be headed back out in less than four hours, never to return to that corporate job or any other.   

Applauded as an Employee of the Year ($1,000 check & bauble from Tiffany) in November, out of a job ten months later.   

But it took me all of thirty minutes to realize that Something Was Afoot, that the Universe had other plans for me.  Realized it at a stop light in Willow Grove, halfway from BISYS to home. 

Realized that Mom had NEVER seen me in the corporate world & now that she was part of the great hereafter’s life force, finally had the clout to do something about it.  Seriously, that’s what hit me at that fateful traffic stop.  This is meant to be.  What lies ahead?  What comes next? 

The older I get, the more impressed I am with my 49-year old self at seeing the unexpected opportunity, the fresh twist of fate.  The subsequent years were a struggle, but – believing through it all that Something Was Afoot – I kept putting one foot in front of the other, kept making plans & expending effort.

David Richo observes that our effortful steps are advanced by an effortless shift - “This combination of effortful steps with effortless shift precisely defines the truly heroic – putting out the effort to live through pain & to be spontaneously transformed by doing so.”

 

Amen & hallelujah!  I can make plans, put in the effort, do all the right things prescribed by all the right people to achieve all the right results, but it’s going to be the effortless shift that makes the genuine difference. 

The older I get, the more I trust that amazing things will open up if I just keep on keeping on.  One of the reasons Mom & her friends enjoyed such remarkable lives, filled with experiences & great purpose, right up to their final days, is that they kept putting in the effort, kept making plans.  They did more because they did more. 

One of the things dearest to my heart is a deep desire to help do for others something I collaborated on with Mom – helping her realize whatever dreams were currently in her pipeline.  Mom always had a dream in her pipeline, there was always something on the horizon waiting to happen.  It could be as simple as writing to Peggy or Linda or Kerry, or going to see Bob Gladish in Iolanthe (she enjoyed every moment of the first act, then headed home), or brunching with family & friends. Always something.

Maybe that is one of the aspects of my Values Vision Dreams project that I hadn’t quite clicked onto yet – helping older friends connect to effortful steps that can lead to an effortless shift.  To help them understand in their hearts that we always, whatever our age, have the ability to move forward through intentions goals plans into the Great Unknown.  Life is an adventure, whether experienced in an arm chair or a classic Corvette.

Fortune favors the prepared mind.

Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.

Effortful steps lead to effortless shifts.

I have the best job in the entire Universe.  I get to help people – from little kids to what Mom called ancients - understand those three ideas, experience them in their lives.  And by helping them, I help myself do the same.  Ain’t life grand?!