Living Life Instead of Planning Life

Maybe I take it to the extreme, but I find a lot of beauty and excitement in leaving situations unplanned. When planning our days, weeks, months and entire lives is encouraged, we forget how to live in the moment. When each day is spent contemplating how we’ll spend tomorrow, we lose today.

After we think about how we will spend tomorrow, and tomorrow eventually comes, we repeat the process and the planning becomes more important than the experience itself. It’s hard to know how situations may change, what problems may arise, or random opportunities may reveal themselves to us when the moments finally come.

Sometimes the planning may prevent us from going on spontaneous adventures or meeting new people. Sometimes we truly want something else, deep down, but feel it’s necessary to allow everything to go according to plan, throwing away any possibility of impulsivity.

I love to live each day completely and freely in the present moment. The only aspect of my day that is guaranteed is my morning cup of coffee. Besides this, I am open to whatever. I love living this way because I never know what is going to happen next. It makes each day of life an exciting adventure. Every moment is treasured so deeply because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to have the experience again.

I think this is my most natural way of living. I feel most comfortable operating under this mindset, and maybe that’s because I struggle with planning. I struggle with figuring out details. I find them both so dreadfully boring that I would rather spend my life improvising along the way.

Every problem that arises (and sometimes there will be a lot) is like a real life engineering problem to solve. Every dilemma is a puzzle. I look at the variables and organize them in such a way to find the best possible solution. And I truly believe that every problem has at least one solution.

My mind tires quickly with routine. It needs intellectual stimulation so much so that sometimes I manufacture complex problems just for the sake of figuring out the ultimate solution. I’m not so sure how this mindset can work in a career setting, but I think I need something more creative that allows me to work these specific muscles of my brain, something possibly a bit “unstable” by the typical 9 to 5 job standard we’re encouraged to adopt throughout the course of our lives.

People ask me my plans for the future, and honestly I have no idea what’s next. I understand there is a degree of importance in planning regardless of how much I struggle with it, but I have a feeling that the solution will come with time. After I have collected all of the proper variables, I will find the ultimate solution that tells me what I should do with my life after graduation – at least for the time being.

I want to do so much with my life. I want to travel, learn multiple languages, hike through beautiful environments, do yoga and art, write books and study architecture, understand the human mind and soul and experience every beautiful thing that life has to offer! How could I possibly choose only one option when the world is full of so much? How can I settle down when there is still more to explore? Why must I make a plan when I don’t know the correct path?

And is it really so necessary to adapt to a lifestyle that’s more stable if it only makes me feel miserable along the way? There must be another option. Life is far too complex for there to be only one solution that works, one path that is the “logical” or “correct” one. Until I figure out this problem, my mind will continue evaluating all the different variables, searching for the ultimate answer. It won’t stop looking until I’ve finally figured out what I’ve been searching for all along – my life purpose.