I recently wrote a post (this post) in which I asked a bunch of questions at the end. One of the questions I asked was; What has surprised you most about the way your life has turned out? and it got me thinking.
Has my life turned out the way I thought it would?
Career wise, the answer is definitely not. I expected to be a lawyer right about now. I expected to be fighting for Human Rights causes and I expected to be travelling the world doing it.
I had never really thought about what that meant for the rest of my life. I knew I would be a mother one day but I never really thought about the plans to get me to that point. I never really thought about being married. I never thought I’d have planned a baby. I never thought it would happen so soon and I never thought about what that meant for my “life plan”.
Weirdly though, the things in my life that I didn’t plan for seem to be the parts of my life that just work. The parts that haven’t been difficult. They’ve happened without my trying.
I accidentally met the man of my dreams – while at a rock festival that I wasn’t even supposed to attend. Both of us had decided to not get seriously involved. A few months later we were living together. The first time I had ever lived with a person I was dating too so it’s not like I’m a serial live together-er. In fact, I am quite lousy at sharing my space and quite frankly I am a pain to live with because I have the worst double standards. I HATE washing dishes but I am unforgiving about dishes standing unwashed for example.
Anyway, I digress, the point is, here we are, in this life of ours, expecting a baby and happily married and that part of my life was never part of any plan.
My career on the other hand which I’d planned since I was about 7 or 8 has turned out to be nothing like what I had imagined. In the beginning it was hard to accept it but as time goes by, I’m becoming less hard on myself. I’ve discovered what success actually means to me. I thought, all the ambition in the world really should result in some high-powered career but actually, all I want now is to write and be a mom and a wife and happy.
[bctt tweet=”Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham Lincoln #QOTD “]
Of course, I still feel very strongly about human rights issues. I still feel extremely passionate about community development and I know that my long-term plan (to run my own NGO) will eventually be a reality… I just find myself at a different place in the world right now where my priorities have shifted.
I think it’s because I’ve had so many experiences that have taught me the value of life. That sometimes life just ends before you’re ready for it to. You don’t always get that chance to go back and live over and do the things you always wanted to do. The things that you always planned to do – one day.
One day is right now.
Today is that day. Today is all we know for certain.
Maybe RIGHT NOW – is the time to go do it.
I loved this post.
Unexpected opportunities will always come up in life, but we still have to make the decision to take them.
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Thank you so much 🙂 Absolutely agree with you… sometimes the opportunities present themselves and we completely miss the boat! How awesome when we get it right!
Yay! Welcome aboard! (lots of sailing references going on here) 😛
I think you wrote a lovely post about ultimately accepting life and where it takes us. It is full of the unexpected! Often those unexpected, unplanned things bring us great joy in the end!:)
Thank you Colleen – I think it’s the unexpected parts of life that are the most exciting 🙂
I can’t even remember what my life was supposed to be like before…Certainly not what I have now, but I wouldn’t change a thing that I have now for that other life. Lovely post!
Thanks Jenny! I love that your life is so perfect for you right now that nothing else matters! That’s exactly how it should be!
I love your posts because you always have me saying “HEY ME TOO!” and it’s great to hear/read someone being so refreshingly honest! I spent the last 7.5 years (it pains me to write that out, it took for-ever, hehe) earning my PhD, only to decide that I loved being home with my daughter and writing. As different as this life is from what I’d expected I’m far happier than anything I could have planned for!
Thanks Natalia. Sometimes it’s tough pressing publish because the stuff I post is quite personal but I think it’s quite therapeutic to see that other people have had the same experiences as me… and it makes me feel like maybe it’s okay to have those kinds of experiences. It was really difficult for me to stay at home. I was the first person in my family to get a University education and I felt like I was throwing it all away. It really helps to know that there are others who have gone even further (high five for getting your PhD) and who have chosen to stay at home and be happy. It’s really not an easy decision. I wanted to do my PhD but the more I think about what I want out of life, the more I can see that this is it. Luckily education is never a waste, even if you don’t go out and use it in the exact field! xox
Same here! I kept weighing what I thought were everyone’s expectations for me much more heavily than the fact that I just wasn’t happy anymore. It took me a while to realize that the fact that I’d gone to college and had gone on for a graduate degree were accomplishments in their own right, regardless of what I did after, and that that was how the people who cared about me understood it too. It really was only recently that I was walking down the street (how corny does that sound?) when I suddenly realized that I had made the right decision because I found myself just feeling happy for no reason. I hadn’t ever felt like that in grad school!
Honestly – I just GET everything you just said! This is the story of my life. I was trying SO hard to please everyone else and all their expectations and now, as you say, happiness is just something that you feel for no reason. How lucky are we!! No, I definitely didn’t feel like that while I was employed in the non-profit sector.. in fact, all the poverty and inequality that I was exposed to just made me feel even worse about my life and myself. I am honestly happy just being alive now. I LOVE that you have had the same experience as me and have come out on the upside of it!
Yes, you make great points, Jonelle, and congratulations on your pregnancy! Sometimes the best things in life are the ones we never planned for. I hope you still achieve your career goals and continue to be happy in your family life, too. Great things are sure to come!
Thank you Monica 🙂
I wrote a similar post. I love hearing how life changes and becomes something we weren’t expecting it to be
It’s kind of exciting when things turn out in an unexpected way. I’ve actually just opened up your post too and I’m about to read it 🙂
In terms of being married with kids, yes, my life has turned out the way I thought it would. But the path I took to get here? Not so much. 🙂
I’m guessing the road to get there was a bit more complicated than the lovely path down to the beach you had hoped for 😉
How lovely that you’ve ended up right where you wanted to be anyway – isn’t life wonderful!
Haha, yep!
Oh gosh I am so faraway from the life I had planned. Funny enough I was also supposed to be a lawyer – family law – I was going to fight for all the children instead I went on to have all the children!
Haha Laura I feel like we escaped an awful life.. Now that I’m older and wiser, I can’t imagine my life as a lawyer – eek!! I am however really looking forward to being at home with my family. I think it’s wonderful how things change and sometimes it’s like life just knows what’s best!