April 18
   
  
We must be willing to let go
of the life we've planned, so
as to accept the life
that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

  

Today's Meditation:

I often want to plan my life.  I want certain things to happen, so I do all I can to make them happen.  I study certain things, I apply for certain jobs, I make tons of plans, all for the sake of trying to make sure that my life turns out the way that I'm pretty sure it should turn out.  I must not be very good at it, though, because life pretty much never turns out the ways that I've envisioned it turning out.  Interestingly enough, it always seems to turn out in just the right way, though it rarely is the way that I've foreseen.

We definitely grow up believing the myth that we're in control of our lives.  As far as that myth is concerned, we do have a great deal of opportunity and ability to influence our lives, but control?  Hardly.  Life takes its own courses, and life and God-- whatever you perceive God to be-- have plans for us that are far beyond what we could imagine for ourselves.  For this reason, it's important to heed Joseph's statement:  We must be willing to accept and live a life that isn't necessarily what we've been planning for or hoping for all along. 

Several years ago, my wife and I bought a house because we planned to live in a certain place for a long while.  Very soon thereafter, I was laid off.  Within a short period of time, the house was gone and we were moving off to a new home.  There was nothing we could do about it, and as much as it hurt, it still wasn't a tragedy-- losing the life we had planned opened up many doors that would have stayed closed to us otherwise, and we've experienced tons of things since then that we never would have experienced had life not forced us to give up the life we had planned.

Life knows what's best.  And if we really want to grow and learn, then it's important that we pay attention so that we can recognize when it's time for us to let go of the old and attempt the new-- when it's time for life to reveal a new direction for us, one that will be new and stimulating and important to us.

Questions to consider:

What does it mean to you to "get rid of the life we've planned"?  How do we accomplish this?

Is the life you're living now the one you foresaw twenty years ago?  Will the life you'll be leading in twenty years be the same one you foresee now?

What life is waiting for you?  How do you know?

For further thought:
 
We must learn to let go, to give up, to make
room for the things we have prayed for and desired.

Charles Fillmore

more thoughts and ideas on letting go

  

    

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