I’m a planner geek. I love personal planners, A5 planners, mini planners. I love all the stickers, fancy pens, and embellished paper clips that make planning so fun…it’s a cross between planning and scrapbooking.
But one bit of wisdom I’ve learned as I look to my day, week or months ahead…
Expectation or Acceptance?
I can put all types of to do’s and events in my planner…and yet if plans fall through I sometimes can become disappointed. Why? Because when I “expect”…I’ve already decided how something is going to be. But when I “accept” …I am more flexible to change.
And so in life…when we start out our day with expectations (and certainly I am not giving expectations a bad name) we have already decided how this will go, how that will go, how our spouses, our children, our co-workers will be, how the weather, our to do list and even traffic will be – we start to put bits and pieces of our lives in “already know how this is going to turn out” little boxes.
Do you watch the end of a movie or read the end of a book before the beginning? What fun would that be? Too many expectations of the day ahead is like that – concentrating on the end of the story before the plot has even been established. But beginning the day with acceptance is understanding that each day holds a bit of its own mystery and intrigue. Rolling with the day with acceptance keeps you from bumping into the those boxes of expectations that can end up making you feel, frustrated, stressed or disappointed.
Expectation or acceptance?
Your choice.
But as for me…I’ll use pencil in my planners!
“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” Allen Saunders
