Embracing the unplanned

I found myself flipping through various train-schedules today, searching for a combination of trains that would get me to Villanova University tomorrow by 4pm for a coaching seminar. Plotting an optimal time-schedule, I proceeded to sketch a back-up, and a back-up to the back-up. Yet I had to admit that something might still go wrong; one can't entirely eliminate uncertainty after all, and perhaps that's okay. In fact, this uncertainty may even lead to unanticipated, positive outcomes.

That is the subject of a post today by ZenHabits blogger Leo Babauta. In it, Mr. Babauta suggests that because the future is unknown (and unknowable), all future plans and predictions possess a great deal of uncertainty:

"We cannot predict the future with any kind of certainty," he says, "and the idea that we can plan based on these shaky predictions is a nice fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. We do not know what will happen today, much less the rest of the week or month."

While I believe Mr. Babauta may overstate his case (after all, how could a company of a country function without some degree of planning?), his is a point nonetheless worth considering.

As I've found on a number of occasions, plans do not always unfold as predicted. When this happens, it seems we are faced with a choice; do we become frustrated, reevaluate our plan, or embrace some combination of both?

According to Mr. Babauta, life is better lived when one learns to "let go" of the need to plan and demand certainty of an inherently uncertain world. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring can be scary sure, but it can also keep us open to new possibilities. "If you don’t expect things to go as planned," says Mr. Babauta, "you are open to the unplanned." As plans are by nature imbued with uncertainty, perhaps this is a useful habit to adopt.

Plans can help us accomplish many complex tasks, but they can also hinder our ability to embrace all the things, events, and people that unexpectedly come into our lives. This is unfortunate, particularly since all these things, events, and people have the potential to change our lives, perhaps for the better. It's hard to say with certainty of course, but then that's just the point. Plans have their value, but so too does an appreciation of their limits.

Something to consider, anyway.

Happy Thursday, friends :)

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