‘Perhaps’ ~ Life is By Adventure

growing new ideasHow often does life go exactly according to your plans for it? If you’re like most of us, not so often, right?

I’m not here to discourage the perspective that we’re in many ways the author of our lives. It’s healthy to plan for the positive. It’s just that I think it’s time to grow up to the idea that we have absolutely no control over what IS. 

Believe me, I sympathize if this is a little uncomfortable to embrace; mostly because, I like being in control too. Here’s the thing. I just don’t try to control the wrong stuff anymore. Because what is always trumps our plans for what we think it should be. And there’s no use fighting the facts.

There are two stories to everyone’s life: the one that is and the one we think it should be. When life’s going as we think it should be, those two stories — The Story of Is and the Story of Should Be — don’t stray too far from the same plot line. But whatever harmony that exists between those stories is usually short lived, as Life continues to unfold into the Story of Is.

And The Story of Is and the Story of Should Be are usually contradictions to one another.  I should have gotten that raise. Kids should be more respectful. Drivers should be more courteous. But whatever we think, our shoulds never change the is. They do, however, create an undefeatable unhappiness.

In my own Story of Should Be, right now I’m at the gym shedding some winter weight that’s been holding on as stubbornly as the snowbank still outside my window. That’s what should be. However, in The Story of Is, I’m sitting not so comfortably—okay, in massive pain—almost flat on my back staring out the window at that aforementioned snow. Apparently, my back didn’t get the memo marked “should” and simply is what it IS. Not only can I not go to the gym, I can’t stand up without assistance.

Okay, that’s the bad news. Here’s the good.

The moment I surrender to what obviously is, I can change my should be to a perhaps.

Perhaps, if I wasn’t flat on my back I wouldn’t be writing this. And perhaps, my perhaps story will help someone else create their own. Perhaps, this isn’t happening to me. Perhaps, it’s happening for me. Perhaps, it’s happening so that I can help others. Perhaps, by the time I finally get to the gym, I’ll be twice as motivated.

I’m intrigued with the idea of creating and keeping a perspective that allows for the possibility that what IS might just be an opportunity to create a perhaps. I looked up the etimology of the word, by the way. It means: “by, through”  + happening, chance or adventure.

It’s natural for us to create a Story of Should Be (as in: I believe, I prefer, I desire), but it needn’t make us miserable. Because there’s a Third Story we can create, if we choose to.

The current Story of Is can become a far more exciting Story of Perhaps.

Perhaps, Life is By Adventure!

Do you have a Story of Perhaps you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it. Post it below!

 

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