"Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
When you are busy making other plans..."
If John Lennon was not the author of those beautiful lyrics, most probably no one would pay attention to that great statement... No one would bother sharing it on his/her social media platform, and no one would stop to think over it: "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans..."
Yes, indeed that is so correct, and at the same time so hard to admit while making endless plans with the hope of having an easy life.
I was raised by a mom who even now, at the age of 80, thinks she can control all her life, both hers and lives of all those she loves... That is how I was programmed to be a great planner. Now I think that what has saved my life was spending a lot of my time with my grandmother, who was unlike my mother left everything to God's will. According to my mom, it was possible to be perfect with just a little bit of good planning, just the way the modern women of the whole world did. That seemed fair to me, because I wanted to be like her: popular and active, able to do thousand things at once. I would like to remind you that was long time ago, even before the influence of the hard core women's magazines, who kept on telling girls about the benefits of being multi tasking, being perfect business women and perfect mothers, perfect lovers, perfect friends, perfect everything...And that was only possible if I could plan everything in a perfect manner, my time, my activities, my days, my months and years.
During all that time I was busy making plans, by grand chance somewhere behind my ear my grandmother was telling me: "Don't worry my dear child, whatever is meant to be, will be. Just hear what your heart says and I will always keep on praying for you..." , which always reassured me somehow... I kept on planning, she kept on praying...
Later, as I grew up, and got more and more educated, and learned more about planning and detailing, life started to become more complicated. More I planned, more life started slipping through my hands. Life had such corners that tricked all my previsions. And during those periods of complete loss of control, that sweet voice of my grandmother was with me, reassuringly: "Don't worry my dear child, whatever is meant to be, will be. Just hear what your heart says and I will always keep on praying for you..."
What we call "modern attitude", keeps on pushing us towards an illusion. An illusion of a totally contollable life: A life that is like mathematics, where we can understand all components, and relying on all those that we think we understand, we can predict all outcomes, thus we can design it according to our wishes. We have our plans, and as everything seems to be going so smoothly, all of a sudden something totally unpredicted happens... We find ourselves in a turmoil, with a total loss of control over our life. In some cases we keep on turning the steering wheel to the direction that we desire with persistence, believing that is the best pattern for us. There we encounter such resistence, so much that we are really hurt. Situation becomes pathetic.
I would like to say at that point that if we are really lucky, life hurts us so tremendously that we are forced to understand how things work on this earth and universe. Life also has its own plans for everyone of us. And being a much wiser planner, what it really wants us to live is really for our own good. There is only one thing that we can be sure of in life: all that happens is for our own sake, nothing is "good luck", nor "others' fault", nor "being in the wrong place", nor "wrong time". Every thing happens exactly where and when it shoud happen, and the major wisdom lies in that belief: life is not something that is dangerous unless it is controlled by intelligent minds. Life is a great experience that should be always relied on, no matter happens. Everything is in constant change and it is wiser not to resist. Life is a great experience if we accept that it is all about growing that faith in our hearts.
Some grandmothers know it. Some have learned it through some tough experiences, some are born remembering that. And those of us who are lucky, we have such grandparents, who start whispering that to our ears at a really early age, long time before real life starts educating our minds: "Don't worry my dear child, whatever is meant to be, will be. Just hear what your heart says and I will always keep on praying for you..."
