Sometimes, or most of the time, as the case may be, things do not go as planned in life. Every 12-18 months-ish (a.k.a whenever the mood strikes), I do an activity similar to a vision board. It's not exactly a vision board, but it's a “plan” for what I want my life to look like in the coming years. Some of the things in my vision are very specific, some are feelings, and some are general. These plans range from the mundane to the extravagant. The only thing that these plans have in common is that non of them ever come about the way I expected or wanted.

A lot of these plans never come to fruition at all. That's not even me being a downer, that's just reality, and it's not even a bad thing! Life throws opportunities and obstacles in your path at every turn. This is what keeps life interesting, although it can be maddening, if we allow it to be. Look back over your life. Think of the worst things that have happened to you. Unless you're still healing from these things, or haven't worked through them, no matter how long ago they were, you probably learned and grew the most through these trials and tribulations. Heck, sometimes even the good things that come our way seem to madden some of us just because they weren't in our plan.

I'm not saying all of this having led a charmed life. I have had things happen in my life that most people only know about from Lifetime movies. If everything in your life had gone as you planned, how many things would you have missed out on? While we can never fully know the answer to that question because one small change can result in many changes along the way that all add up, I think we can all agree that life would be very different if we had each planned it all out.

Did you ever hear the saying, “the only thing you have control over is your reaction”? We do not have control over what happens in our lives. Our lives are not linear; they are complicated webs that overlap and intertwine with other people's complicated webs. There are natural elements that sneak in there too, like a tornado or a bee stinging you. We have little to no control over most of our lives. I think most of us would agree with the earlier statement that we can only control our own reaction, but, I also think that most of us wish it wasn't true and strive to prove it wrong.

When we fully accept the good, the bad, and the ugly that life throws at us, and control our reactions, we can finally be at peace and have that feeling that we are chasing when we're trying to control everything. Unexpectedly losing your job or having a new one offered to you out of no where can both cause great stress on an individual or family. It's not so much what happens, but what you are expecting and how you choose to react to it. Finding out you are expecting a child could be the best or worst thing to happen to someone. If you are already struggling to feed yourself, it's terrible news. If you've been trying to have a child for years, it's fantastic news. Getting married can either be amazing or terrifying. Choosing your mate and being excited to plan a wedding together is very different from being forced into an arranged marriage to someone you do not like. Finding out that your parent has left you all of their belongings could be a bright spot or a huge ball of stress added to your time of mourning their death.

It's all in how we see it. While this is easy to say, it's not so easy to practice. It has taken me years. While I am not happy about a lot of things that happen in my life, I can choose to react in a way that I will not regret later, doesn't make things worse, and looks for how I can use whatever happened to help me grow or do something amazing in the future. That doesn't mean you sit back and let whatever happens happen. Be intentional, choose how you react, adjust, don't blame what happened in the past for what you're about to do next. Take control of the only thing you can; YOU! This is not an easy path, but it's a simple one.

So go, make your plan, dream big, do whatever you can to implement it, expect it to go a million different ways, adjust accordingly, take new opportunities, make ramps out of roadblocks, be intentional, control your own emotions, and get yourself to where you want to be. Just be prepared to take a path you never expected.