Browsing through LinkedIn - that pseudo-social network with a business twist to justify daytime doom scrolling - I came across a picture of a mid-career couple sipping Cabernet. The accompanying post went something like this:
Date night? It’s way more than that! It’s our quarterly meeting to ensure we haven’t strayed from the path we both agreed on years ago, a way to hold each other accountable to our documented Life Plan. The Plan helps us realize what we want life to be about.
There was even an offer to share the template they use.
While I’ve always been uneasy with treating relationships like a business, in fairness, that wasn’t the gist of the post; rather, the emphasis was on documenting and following a life plan.
I do marvel at those who can see with clarity their far-future selves, who know exactly how they’ll get there. How did they decide? At what age? What influences (or influencers) guided them? What happens when they arrive? Do they have a plan B?
Maybe it’s envy. Why do I struggle to see even my near-future self?
The plan hints at helping you uncover the meaning of life - or at least the meaning of your life. Now that’s an impressive undertaking; haven't philosophers and religions and gurus and shamans struggled with this for millennia? And that got me thinking about a related - more pragmatic - question:
How should one live?
Individuals and organizations have ready prescriptions, eager to tell you their secrets, to sell you their templates. Yet what would your world be like if everyone chose the same path, the same way to live? No matter how ideal the path might seem at the time, wouldn’t the results be mediocrity, overwhelming average-ness?
I’d get bored. I don’t think you’re meant to know what’s next. Uncertainty is the price of beauty, the unknown a source of wonder. Sure, I could benefit from some goal-setting discipline; maybe I’ll work harder on that. But not at the expense of the beauty that comes from not knowing.
How should one live? Carl Jung says “One lives as one can… To go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other.”
The movie Frozen 2 inspired audiences with the song “The Next Right Thing,” offering similar guidance to those who might feel lost, lacking direction. Don’t look too far ahead. Focus on the next choice. Do the next right thing. Perhaps without realizing it, that’s how many of us continue to cope with the uncertainties and twists of the pandemic.
What does your path look like when you live by doing the next right thing? Crooked, for all the important detours you’ve taken. Messy, for all the goals abandoned as new priorities unfold. Beautiful, for all the unexpected experiences a straight and narrow path might not afford. Life becomes its own answer.
In words often attributed to Santa Teresa de Avila, "Dios escribe derecho con renglones torcidos.” God writes straight with crooked lines. I may not yet know where I’m going, but the journey has been full of wonder.
Do the next right thing. Do it with conviction. That is a meaningful life.
With thanks to Maria Popova.