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As a young woman I set my expectations and created a vision of how my life would turn out. My plan included college, a fantastically successful career traveling the world as an engineering consultant, and eventually a life with Mr. Right, in a large English country house with a circular driveway, and four children (including twins.)
I made it to college, then graduate school, and launched my engineering career, and that's about as far as my expectations took me. I fell in love with Mr. Romance (who really wasn't Mr. Right), fell out of love with engineering, and never even got a sniff of anything resembling my four children. Sometimes I feel as if I've had more Plan B's than hot dinners.
But...
I found my true vocation as a writer and now I work, not in exotic locations, but at home, near the beach, in a country I love. I picked my way through the minefield of potential spouses until I found, not simply Mr. Right, but Mr. Fabulous, someone I had never imagined in my fantasy world. These two areas of my life didn't meet my expectations; they exceeded them, and so did many others.
When I look back at my expectations I realize that I probably wouldn't have been happy in the life I had so carefully planned. I'll never know for sure, but because I made some mistakes and some poor choices, and because things didn't go as planned, I've had opportunities I would never have had, and I have a life that is, overall, better than it might have been.
So often we set expectations for ourselves and when they don't work out we lament our misfortune or beat ourselves up for not achieving what we set out to do. But I'm coming to believe that life isn't supposed to go as planned. And sometimes out of those disappointments come unexpected and pleasant surprises.
This may all sound a little Pollyanna to those of you who are trying to make some sense of the hand you've been dealt and trying to figure out why life never seems to go as planned, but I really do believe that each of us will someday be able to look back and say, "Wow, this great thing that I have now could never have happened if my plans had worked out."
Yes, it's Pollyanna-thinking, but for now, I'm hanging my hat on it.
