Life is what happens while you’re making plans. We’re taught to plan things before we execute, think ahead, work smarter not harder, that way we can get from here to there, achieve our dreams somewhat in the same way a classical army would “take that hill!” I tend to visualize this as an architect carefully plotting out the entire structure, adjusting for ground water, trying to project how people will use the structure, making sure to accommodate all the local laws and restrictions, factoring in the budget, detailing what materials to be used, all of which culminates in a set of blue prints to be followed in making a building.
Of course, the plans have no means of dealing with things like inclement weather that causes land slides or hurricanes, the contractor from next door who did illegal things to bypass those laws you’re following, or the sub par labor that the contractor hires to broaden his profit margin. Life happens while we’re making plans.
I prefer to let to of the architectural, monochrome blue print model of life and look at our lives as amazing works of art to be crafted. Each day is an opportunity to add or subtract something, choose a direction to go in, put another color on the canvas, and bend with the flow of how the art goes. Some artists have a plan, others go with the flow of the work, all of them meeting somewhere in the middle between the plan, their skill, the materials, and the moment to create a unique expression which takes on its own life somewhere mystically in the middle of all the doing. Such is life. Having a goal, a dream, a desire, that’s the overall plan for the art. How you get there from here, well, that’s in the materials available and in the doing.
Some people choose to lead a very monochrome, sometimes even noir life. I have to bite my tongue not to tell them I prefer sepia tones because that’s not funny at all. *chuckle* I prefer a richer pallet myself but everyone has their preferences and the amazingly cool thing about life is that no two are ever the same and all of them have the potential to be wondrous. They might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s another great thing about art and life. They don’t have to be. Don’t like what you see, keep moving. There’s more to experience and if you don’t find anything to your liking, then make your own. 🙂 Be the art you want to see in the world, live the life you deserve now, not in some unspecified later. Your life is full of opportunities each day to make it into something blessed. What aspect are you going to work with today?