As I mentioned in yesterdays post, at times our best plans get disrupted and we are faced with uncertainty. Sometimes these changes come from new ideas within ourselves which may be easier to deal with than those which are obliged on us, by the changing minds or circumstances of others. However, at the end of the day, all changes to our plans can be a challenge. If we are very attached to our plans or if the changes affect some aspects of our identity, then the changes can shake us to the core.

Making plans is a necessary part of life. Although meditation can help us identify when we are continually planning as a strategy to deal with our anxiety, normal making of plans is necessary for us to be effective, to move forward in our work  and to look after  those we have a responsibility for. Therefore a certain amount of living in and imagining the future is appropriate and necessary for our lives.

However, if we make a plan too rigid, or become fixed on a certain way that the future has to turn out –  or that others have to be – we can become too attached to a fixed notion of how the Universe should behave.  As I have said before,  this can make it hard to accept the diversions which reality takes from our own agenda. We believe things have to turn out in a certain way for them to be right.  Thus we lose connection with how things actually are. We can even think we are running the show.

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a boar.
I plot to get what I want
And end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
And fall in.

I should be suspicious
Of what I want.

Rumi