I Thought I Knew Where My Life Was Going

Two years ago, I thought I had a pretty good idea of where my life was headed.

After being single for over a decade, I was moving in with someone I thought I might spend the rest of my life with. I had a career. I had plans. Maybe not every detail was figured out, but at this stage of life, I certainly didn't expect everything to change so drastically.

And yet, here I am. (Apparently, life made other arrangements and neglected to consult me.)

Very early one morning last week, I found myself sitting outside on my balcony looking up at the stars when it occurred to me just how different my life is from the one I imagined two years ago....

That relationship ended only a few months after I moved in. I left a career I hadn't planned on leaving. I moved across the country. I started writing books. I started a YouTube channel - which certainly wasn't on the life plan. (Neither was talking to myself in my living room while adjusting a tripod, but here we are.)

And now... I'm sitting on the balcony of another new home, in another province, looking up at the stars and thinking: How on earth did I get here?

Not in a bad way. Just in that strange way you sometimes look around at your own life and realize you couldn't possibly have predicted it.

We like to know what's coming.

I think most of us feel better when we have some idea of where we're going. We make plans. We imagine futures. We make decisions based on what we believe will happen next.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that life doesn't seem particularly interested in following our plans.

People leave. Relationships change. Careers end. Children grow up. We lose people we love. Opportunities appear that we never expected. Something we were absolutely certain about turns out not to be true. Sometimes the universe throws the entire plan out the window and seems surprised that you have questions.

And occasionally, we change.

That might be the most surprising one of all. Because sometimes the life we planned isn't taken away from us. Sometimes we simply become someone who no longer wants it.

Some changes are chosen. Others choose us.

When I look back over these past two years, I can see both. There were changes I chose and changes I absolutely did not. Some were exciting. Some were painful. Some scared me. Some made absolutely no sense while they were happening. And some only began to make sense much later.

I think that's one of the difficult things about being in the middle of change. We want to know what it means while we're still living through it. We want reassurance that we're making the right decision. We want to know where this new road leads before we're willing to take the first step. But life rarely gives us that kind of certainty.

Sometimes all we get is the next step. And then another.

Maybe we don't need to know.

A few days after that early morning on the balcony, I was putting together a new television console. The instructions recommended two people. There was one.

Me.

I'd actually left the box sitting there for several days because it looked like a big job. Part of me wondered whether I should wait until I could find someone to help.

Eventually, I opened the box and I started - piece by piece. (At which point I discovered approximately 4,000 pieces of hardware and briefly reconsidered every decision that had led me to this moment.)

There were times when I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. There may have been a piece or two installed incorrectly and subsequently removed. There may also have been some language not included in the instruction manual. 😂

But eventually, there it was. Finished. Standing in my living room. And I found myself thinking about how often we do this in life.

We stand in front of something we haven't done before and assume we're supposed to know whether we can do it before we begin.

Maybe that's backwards.

Maybe sometimes you find out what you're capable of by doing the thing you aren't sure you can do.

You start the business.

You leave the relationship.

You take the trip.

You move somewhere new.

You write the book.

You walk into the room alone.

You pick up the screwdriver.

You try.

Not because you know it's going to work. Because that's the only way you get to find out.

Two years.

That's what I kept thinking about as I sat outside that night. Two years.

That's all.

Two years ago, I would not have predicted this life. And that means something else is also true: I have absolutely no idea what my life will look like two years from now. (Given the evidence, I'm reluctant to make predictions.)

Neither do you.

There's something slightly frightening about that. But there's also something incredibly freeing about it.

The chapter you're living right now is not proof of what the rest of the book will look like. The thing that feels permanent may not be permanent.

The thing you think you're incapable of doing may eventually become something you've done so many times you barely think about it.

And the version of you sitting here today may have no idea what the version of you two years from now will know.

Maybe we don't need to have everything figured out.

Maybe we don't need to know exactly where we're going.

Maybe we just need enough courage - and faith - to take the next step when it appears.

And perhaps, every once in a while, we need to look back at the road we've already travelled and realize:

I didn't know how to do any of this before I did it. And yet, somehow, here I am.