“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”

– Joseph Campbell

John Lennon once said that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  How often that is true!  There have been times when the changes on my calendar have been so frequent that I’ve run out of room to cross out one plan and add another.  At those times, I resort to circles and arrows and exclamation points and stars in an effort to draw my eye to the final entry.  Even then, how often does a last-minute phone call change the meeting place or time once again?  It can leave us feeling as though life is a pretty random event, one where we have little choice in the matter but to hang on and see where the wild ride will lead us.

At times when the variables seem to outnumber the predictables 10 to 1, I know I expend a lot of energy in trying to straighten out the curves in my road and assure that it is well-paved so that I will not only reach my goals, but will reach them at the most convenient time.  In the years when I had five children at home — one a teenager, two “tweens,” and two toddlers, I used to joke that I was in charge of keeping order on the entire East Coast of the U.S.  It certainly felt that way; and if I learned anything from the experience it would have to be that even when I try to control it all, life seems to bend that road and send surprises my way.

As I think back on those times of so many calendar events, I realize that “surprises” was not the word I used to describe the intrusions on my master plan.  Those were stressful days; but now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I can see that it was the unplanned intrusions that often brought the nicest surprises to our world.  If I could go back for a do-over, I would be more intent on pushing the stress aside and enjoying each moment I shared with my kids whether I had planned it or not.

My days are less hectic now with only one teenager still at home.  It’s funny how welcome the intrusions are these days, and funny how I have come to see them as surprises, as opportunities for moments of teaching and of learning.  Maybe life is far less about the things we do and far more about who we are as we are doing them.  I realize the moment I say those words that the people I  have learned the most from as I’ve lived through the busiest parts of my life have been those who exhibited what I call “grace under pressure.”  It is not the storm all around us that determines how we will live each day — it is the calm in the center of the storm, the place of receptiveness to the things that life has to offer and the desire to be open to the teachable moment.

Life is waiting to be lived.  Each day is filled with surprising intrusions, and we have the choice to become stressed by the things we don’t plan or to listen to the rhythm of change and join a different dance.  We must shed our plans if we are to be open to the moments of learning that will allow us to grow and understand that what we do does not define who we are.