Allowing yourself to experience life as it unfolds requires forgoing all pretence of control. In other words, allowing life to unfold entails trusting the process of life.
Yes, you can voice your intentions, dream your dreams, and work towards your goals. You can make plans. But, despite your planning, you only ever get to take the next step towards your desired destination from within the context of your understanding of reality.
Yet, even with the best of plans, there are no guaranteed outcomes.
Life unfolds as you take the next step and wait to find out what happens. And, no matter what happens, you only have control over your response to that outcome and deciding your next step in light of your new circumstances.
The challenge is learning to align your dreams with life’s plans.
You can dream and scheme as much as you want, but life only unfolds one step at a time according to its plan. The challenge is learning to align your dreams with life’s plans.
Sounds impossible, I know. But, there are things you can do to facilitate aligning your plans with life’s.
- Pay attention to what happens in your life as a result of the steps you take.
- Wonder why things happen when they do – and, remember, things happen for you and not to you.
- Become aware of the beliefs and assumptions that guide your decision making.
That last one is vital, since if you’re not aware of why you make certain decisions, you’ll keep making them – even if you don’t enjoy the outcomes they bring.
An unpleasant outcome is life’s way of telling you to make a different decision, since all outcomes are consequences of decisions made. To make a different decision requires changing your mind but, to change your mind, you first need to be aware of why you made the original decision. In other words, you need to live consciously if you want to benefit from life’s lessons.
Living consciously is being aware of what’s going on in your mind and circumstances while you are trusting the process of life.
We are not talking about living in blind faith. We’re talking about paying attention to what life is telling you before you take your next step. We’re talking about adjusting your plans to align with life’s feedback, instead of blindly blundering on because you think you know what’s best for you.
None of us has all the information or a full understanding of the bigger picture. We only see the world through our little window – and, often, our little window needs a clean before we can see clearly.
Peter Mulraney is the author of My Life is My Responsibility: Insights for Conscious Living
Image Credit: Photo by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash