Off The Map

So here's the thing: it's all well and good to have a plan. In fact, it's generally a pretty good idea to have a plan - I know a few people who basically live only about a half-hour in advance and it seems to work okay for them but I think most of us need at least a little bit of a road map.

However! Don't get married to that map, you know? It's so easy to decide you're going in a particular direction and then just keep plugging in that direction regardless of whatever more interesting opportunities present themselves, but then who know what you might miss?

It's like hiking, if you're into that kind of thing. Yes, you want to have an idea of where you're going, lest your loved ones end up having to send a search party after you. But you have some options while you're on that trail - you can keep moving forward, paying attention only to the path in front of you, focused on getting where you're going as fast as you can, or you can slow down a little bit and take in the world around you. For one thing, there might be a bear nearby! But there's also flowers and interesting leaves and rocks and maybe other hikers around.

This applies on the small scale as well as the large scale, by the way. Definitely give yourself some flexibility in your overall life plan - I've known more than one person who almost missed out on really beautiful love because that person didn't fit into what they'd planned for themselves - but also let your daily plans change if an opportunity arises. I know I'm not the only person who has considered turning down social invitations because my apartment's a mess. And yeah, it's important to keep a tidy living space, and sometimes the invitations are to things that just sound like the very last thing you want to do and a messy home is an okay way out but it's all too easy to get into the habit of keeping to yourself and staying rigid in your schedule and subsequently never experiencing anything new. Sure, that new experience might turn out to be terrible but at least it's new! And chances are good that it'll actually be a good thing, but you truly never know until you're there.

I'm not advocating flittering around trying to experience absolutely everything, by the way. That's exhausting and ends up being kind of counterproductive because you're on sensory overload most of the time so your brain kind of stops processing any kind of information at all and you end up really not experiencing anything. But do leave yourself open to some options, I just don't want you to miss out on anything.

Foodie Wednesday tomorrow! It'll be yummy.

- Sarah