The Best Laid Plans

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Author: Lois Grant-Holland

Article source: http://www.kabish.com/. Used with author's permission.

We all know that the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go awry, so we shouldn't be surprised when the best laid lifeplans go awry, too.

What "looks good on paper" doesn't always look as good when it comes up in your life, especially if - like so many of our learning experiences - the person or the situation that we're dealing with proves to be less than a positive experience. If we planned it all ahead of time - if we made arrangements before we came into this lifetime to experience certain things under certain circumstances with certain people - then why is life so difficult? Shouldn't we just be born, experience everything that we planned to experience with all of our soul-level friends, learn and grow together in perfect harmony, then die and start the cycle all over again? Where does all this stress fit into our "perfect little lifeplan?" And why do we experience so many more negative emotions than positive ones?

The answer is obvious: a plan is only a plan. It's a suggestion as to how we should do things; it's not a mandate, by any stretch of the imagination. In the early adult years of our lives, we may plan to put something aside each payday to support us in our old age. We know we should, and we know why we should. We know what will probably happen to us if we don't. It's a good plan, but it only works if we consistently "stay with the plan" until the whole plan has had a chance to play itself out. It takes a lifetime of planning - and a lifetime of follow-through - to be financially secure after retirement, and it takes a lifetime of conscious commitment to the learning process called life to be spiritually secure when that lifetime draws to a close.

Part of knowing where we are on our life path in knowing whether we're working with our lifeplan, or against it. Our life itself - not as we choose to see it in order to make ourselves feel okay but as it really is - is the only trustworthy measure of how far we have come on the path we choose for this lifetime before we came into it.

In looking at our lives, we have to remember that there are two variables at play for each of us, variables that can - and most often do - have a tremendous impact on the way our life plan works itself out and determine whether we follow our spiritual path or live our lives as powerless victims of circumstance.

The first variable is the critical one: we may or may not consciously recognize the order in our lives. We may not yet have achieved the level of inner understanding that reminds us that we are in this life because our soul developed a plan that was intended to accommodate the growth experience we need in order to grow spiritually, and that we - as human beings - are our soul's vehicle for growth.

The second variable is other people's choices, and the effect those choices have on us and on our learning experiences. Every human being enjoys the blessing of free will and conscious choice, because - without it- we could never grow. Growth comes from thinking about who we are and the way we relate to the rest of the world, and choosing whether to stay the same or change into someone working from a more spiritual position. Our choices create our reality, it's true, but other people's choices can sometimes have a stronger impact on our day-to-day reality than our own. Our lives are continually affected - and therefore changed - by the decisions other people make every minute of every day, whether those decisions affect us directly or indirectly.

When we're not aware of the impact that other people's choices have on our lives, and on our life plans, it's easy to draw wrong conclusions about what our life plan really is. If we incorrectly assume that every negative and difficult situation in our lives is there because we planned to use it as a learning process, we may focus our energies into experiencing things we have no need to experience and "learning" life lessons that we accomplished lifetimes ago. Awareness enables us to clearly see the difference between the experiences that we planned ahead of time for our own growth purposes and the experiences that are a part of our lives because we - or somebody else in our life - made conscious choices that put us there.

No matter how well we may have planned, we couldn't possibly have put together a life plan so comprehensive that it takes into consideration all of the variables that come into play in any given situation, especially when that situation is dependent on the other person's conscious choices. That's why - when we're seeking to identify the path defined by our life plan - we are forced to look inside ourselves - to our inner self - for guidance, since only our soul knows for sure which experiences are part of our pre-chosen path for personal evolution and which experiences are obstacles to that path because they exist only because we chose - in the present moment - to be a part of them.

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