The Life That is Waiting For Us

Have you ever had an experience that turned out completely differently in real life than you imagined it would?

I love to imagine how things will turn out, but in my mind, everything ends up looking really perfect. Kind of like in movies, when the sun is shining and everyone looks unrealistically beautiful, and music plays in the background. “Life” in movies happens according to a script.

(Why is there no music playing in the background of my life? Or better yet, can the whole thing just become a musical? I would love for my life to be a musical.)

So we dream up these perfect moments, and plan great adventures, and we imagine how they will turn out, and then….they don’t turn out that way at all.

And we are left with two choices:

1) Try to salvage the pieces of our broken daydreams, and attempt to force everyone involved to get with our plan.

2) Chuck the plan and go with real life, realizing that what is real and right before us is, in most ways, better than the daydream.

This choice was before me on Sunday afternoon.

I’d been waiting for weeks to go to Look-Out with our family. It is a Fall Tradition. And the sun must shine, the colors must be beautiful, everyone must be happy, and I must get fantastic pictures.

Big Problem: The camera battery that I thought was charged….was not. As I took the first picture on Sunday afternoon, my camera died.

That was the end of beautiful fall pictures. And the sun wasn’t shining.

I was quite disappointed. But…the colors were still beautiful, and everyone was happy, and Ben has a Blackberry! So we carried on as best we could.

And you know what? It was pretty fantastic. My cute family snacked on apples, and we enjoyed the view. I think I enjoyed it even more, because I had the time to really see it – I wasn’t looking through a view finder the entire time. It was strangely freeing.

The next day, I came across this quote:

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell

Daydreaming and scheming up fun plans is good and all, but I never want it to keep me from missing out on what is actually happening around me.

Have you ever been surprised by real life, and had to give up your perfect little plan?