You walk through life. Everything is going according to plan. Every day like the one before – the grating yet comforting grind of monotony. Then BAM. You’re caught by a curveball. A piece of bad news or a freak event. Something you could never have possibly foreseen. Your plans implode, and you’re left with your head spinning.
On the other hand …
Something joyous happens, something spectacular that you never dared hope for. It’s the greatest news ever, the most wonderful unplanned thing to happen to you. Your plans are upended in the best way possible.
What do you do when life hands you the unexpected? I like plans. I like organization. I like to go through life knowing what’s going to happen next. When something pops up that isn’t part of the plan, I bristle. Even good things, sometimes. My control freak tendencies take a hit from things in life beyond my control. The older I get, the more thankful I am for that.
I could go on about how life is a test and molds us and so forth, but let’s dispense with the cliches. What I’m most thankful for is that the unexpected in life – good and bad – show us who we really are. We dig deep when confronted with a crisis to prove our real mettle. A disaster buffets us, and cracks in our supposed good character can appear. We get to know ourselves a little better. No need to fret, though. Knowing that they are there gives us a chance to address them.
I don’t believe that anyone can truly know themselves fully. Our “real” selves are a bit of a mystery to our own minds. We humans are simply simply too complex and too multilayered to be able to completely comprehend ourselves, much less others. But we do get glimpses of insight every now and then. Life isn’t the only thing full of the unexpected. We can defy our own expectations. We accomplish things we didn’t know we could, we possess virtues we never, ever suspected we had, and we also display vices we never thought we possessed.
Okay, life is a test at times. But testing isn’t meant to break. I’m very glad that life has thrown curve balls at me. I’d be stagnating in my own self-satisfaction if I didn’t know where and how I could improve. Always room for growth and all that jazz.
This naturally extends to writing. No great writer ever rested on his or her laurels. They keep improving, working, pushing themselves to become better. And writing is a career where you put yourself into the public’s eye. Readers can detect if you’re improving or not. Scary, no? And no writer can ever 100% predict how readers will react. What form will the criticism take? What will be the readers’ reactions? Are we ready? Can we ever be ready? But we roll with the punches as best we can and figure out what went right and what went wrong. And we write a better story next time.
Expect the unexpected. Welcome it. You’re going to be thrown for a loop someday anyway. Might as well as learn to embrace the good that comes from it.
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Image: “River meander, outside of Kobuk Valley National Park” by AlaskaNPS; Licensed under Public Domain Mark 1.0.
Jake W. Powell 