My eyes popped open at 7:45 am after a restless sleep. Their still unfocused gaze went straight to the window, seeing only a haze of whiteness. “Another foggy day…” I thought. A few moments later when my eyes reopened again with clarity, I saw the reality. There was a sheet of snow covering the ground and a quick and steady stream of snow falling out of the sky and collecting quickly onto the earth. “But, it’s still October? I thought. “But, it was 70 degrees last week?” said my brain as I tried to make sense of this phenomenon.
Whether I was ready or not, here came this big change outside of my window, and to be clear, I was NOT ready! Suddenly I felt a bit of stress about the snow due to my lack of preparedness. The tasks that I had set out to accomplish today began rattling through my mind, wondering if the snow would be an impediment. “Would the roads be safe? Would I be able to make the nearly 30 minute drive to the grocery store? Would I unanticipatedly be stuck inside today? But, I checked the weather last night and it didn’t indicate this kind of snow fall!” I could feel the anxiety begin to bubble in my stomach. I felt out of control, totally and utterly hindered by mother nature. What was I to do now?
“Man plans, and God laughs.” I recall my grandfather saying to me as a child, and even then understanding exactly what he meant. The snow this morning, an example of this. When my grandfather’s Navy ship was bombed and he only just escaped death in World War II, an even greater example of this. 2020? Here we go again. We convince ourselves that we have control over things that we cannot and simply do not influence. We plan and we use our thoughts to try to have mastery over situations past, present, and future, that are beyond our control. Why do we do this? Well, to avoid the feeling of anxiety that I experienced this morning. To maintain preparedness and feel like we have agency in our own lives. We yearn for control we simply do not have.
Now I say this so as not to say, “Screw it! Throw all of your plans out the window and let the wind take you where it may.” No no, I cannot part from my planning-self to this extreme, and there is extraordinary merit in planning. It allows our individual lives to maintain a semblance of organization, safety, and normalcy. Taking care of our adult responsibilities requires an inordinate amount of planning (if only I knew then, childhood would’ve felt so much more appealing.) We can praise our frontal lobes for our executive functioning abilities, to be able to think about the wellbeing of our future-selves. As humans we have evolved to be able to make plans and organize our lives. We need(ed) this skill in order to survive…and yet, wrenches are constantly being thrown in our plans. I mean, if we were the characters in an adult-themed lifelike video game it would probably be called “Wrench Dodger.” Picture it now. The nightmarish visual of your avatar excitedly organizing and planning things out as the universe unexpectedly chucks wrenches at you. Does it make you stop planning? No. Somehow it’s like our memory is wiped clean by the time the next plan comes around, because if we actually remembered how hard it was to work around the first wrench, we might just give up and let the chips fall where they may.
So, when is the planning helpful and when is it unnecessary bordering on excessive? The thing is, we don’t know exactly? We have no idea when the wrench will come and we have no idea when we will be able to execute our plans as we mapped out internally. Just like playing a slot machine, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. We cannot predict the machine’s patterns so we just keep playing, because the wins feel so good! Feeling in control of things in our life can feel so…yummy! Yet, when things do not go our way, when the unexpected occurs, it can be devastating. It can knock the wind out of us to receive unexpected news, experience an unexpected event, or even to unexpectedly need to change the plans that you previously laid out for yourself because they no longer make sense in your life. All of this planning and energy directed towards something, and poof, in an instant everything can change, the plan dissolves, and almost immediately your mind fills the space by trying to come up with a new plan (or is that just my mind?).
We cannot predict the unexpected things that happen in our external or internal worlds. We may agonize over them, such as the upcoming election, which seems to have absolutely everyone on edge, but in reality the agony does not shift the outcome and only adds to our stress and anxiety. While many things cannot be guaranteed in this life, there are a few that can, and one of those few certainties is that our lives will not go exactly as we plan.
So, can we prepare for the unexpected that lingers in our midst? Well, yes and no. No, in that we have no idea what the unexpected will be, how it will impact us, why it will happen, and so forth – it will always bring with it an element of surprise. However, also yes. Yes in that, we should always expect the unexpected to be a part of our lives. When in the throes of meticulous planning, take a step back and keep this in mind. This reminder can serve as a layer of protection from the unexpected, so that we are not so surprised or devastated by it when it pops up again and again in our lives. Expect, that there will be many things you cannot control in your life and that this is normal and ok. Trust, that as scary or uncomfortable as the unexpected thing may be, that you will make it through. Human beings are strong, resilient creatures. We have evolved to make it through tremendously difficult experiences. So, when life throws a wrench in your plan, pause, breathe deeply, and remember that this is exactly what is to be expected.
Now that we know what to expect, I want to take this one step further. What if we can simply shift our perspective around the unexpected. While yes, some of the unexpected things that happen in our lives are tragic and do not add joy in any way shape or form, other unexpected events do just that if we allow them to. So today, I have a choice. I can stay inside, hide from the snow, and allow it to continue aggravating me, or I can put on my snow boots, feel the satisfying crunch of fresh powder below my feet, and dance in it! The unexpected things that happen in our lives are really just surprises, and surprises can be beautiful after all.