You can’t plan your life out, although most people certainly try.

From the moment most of us enter school, we start thinking of how our lives will go. What college we will go to, what job we will get, how many kids we will have when we will get married. It’s an exhausting list of plans, checklists, and goals over things we really have no control over… unless you live your life so carefully, you hardly live at all.

You see, it’s the surprises, the changes, the unexpected moments that mold your life. It’s the things you don’t plan that alter your future and have a large hand in who you are to become. It’s the bumps along the way, the unexpected potholes, the strangers you pick up. It’s the forks in the road, the unmarked road signs, and the wrong turns that lead you to where you should ultimately end up.

The difference is how you react to those changes. Do you warmly accept and welcome the unexpected or do you try to fight it, slamming the door in its face?

For those who try to fight the unexpected, life seems more like a battlefield than a playground of new opportunity. Fighting the unexpected only sets them up for a lifetime of challenges and lost battles. Because you can’t fight the unexpected, it will only enter through an unlocked window.

Those who have learned to truly live know that the unexpected should not be fought but welcomed. The unexpected is inevitable and you can either choose to greet it like an enemy or welcome it as a friend who is going to bring you to new places and introduce you to new people in your life.

The unexpected is missing your flight and spending the day in the airport lounge talking to those Puerto Ricans who end up inviting you to their party. It’s the time your train is delayed so you take another that has a stop in Barcelona for two days.

It’s not getting into the college of your dreams, but getting into another you never considered, where you end up meeting your best friends for life. It’s when you didn’t get that job you wanted and spent the day sulking in a coffee shop where you met a guy who offered you another one, one that changed everything.

Because life is never going to work out how you planned and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will start greeting the unexpected with open arms. Let the unknown, the unplanned and the possibility of change excite you and keep the future an unknown secret that can only be found out through time.

It’s the unexpected that changes your life, that takes you to new places and brings you to new people. It’s what adds vitality and mystery to our seemingly dull lives. So let the unexpected take you to places you never knew, introduce you to friends you’ve never met and brought new meaning to your life.

It Brings You Where You Should Be Going

The unexpected is not a deviation from the plan; it’s just the new plan. Changes, unexpected occurrences and surprises are what help define your future. It’s the plan that you didn’t realize you had, but should most definitely adhere to. The unexpected should never be viewed as bad, but a necessary detour on the highway of life.

It’s that job you got when you didn’t get the other one. It is the people you met when you missed your train who introduced you to new things, a new world. It’s the cities you discovered when you took another path because the other was closed.

It Builds Character

Being able to “roll with the punches” is a very admirable and important trait. Being able to adapt to change and welcome it will make life not only a lot easier but also more fun.



It will open another world of opportunity and give you freedom many people will never experience. Because being able to adapt to change and understand it as a good thing is a necessary quality to living stress-free and also as freely and confidently as that soulful bunch who just lets life take them where they should go.

It Introduces You To New People

The unexpected is a friend in itself, but it is also the key to meeting new ones. Without change, there would be no reason to meet anyone new. There would be no room for new people or new experiences. It’s unforeseen that brings you to the new places with the new people who have yet to make an impression on your life.

Without the unexpected, you would have never met those people in the airport or your best friends at college. You would have never met that man who taught you about thunderstorms or that woman who read your fortune. There’s a lot of interesting people out there and the unexpected is just the stops on the path to meeting them.

It Keeps You On Your Toes

Only those who are ready for the unexpected can live a full life. Those who are excited by the unknown and the unplanned are those who are most free, the least unshackled by the monotony of life. They are ready for everything, yet at the same time, never ready.

Accepting the unexpected as a welcomed friend is the only way to stay ahead of the game, to not let change knock you down or to be afraid to face the unknown.

It Opens New Opportunities

If you’re the kind of person who looks at life with a “glass half full” mentality, then you know that every missed opportunity is just another opportunity waiting to be unveiled. Because there is no such thing as shut doors, just ones that have yet to be opened. Every wrong turn, every mistake, every delay is just another opportunity to experience something new.

It’s the missed chances that turn into new opportunities, opportunities that would have never arisen if you didn’t miss that bus or get into your safety school. Not getting that job you wanted just means you were meant for a different one, one that may be better for you.

Source

Like what you are reading? Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss new life-advancing articles!

Copyright © 2014-2024 Life Advancer. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact us.

Leave a Reply