Red Lights and Expectations

It is rare for me to have one of those mornings where I don’t hit the snooze button a gazillion times (okay, I exaggerate…about a half a dozen times, tops). I wake up refreshed and ready to go, get myself showered, dried, curled and buffed in record time, feed and water the critters and still manage to get out the door at least 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Yeah, right. Hey, it happens!

I had one of those mornings the just other day. As I hopped in my car and buckled up, I smiled to myself.  For once I’ll have time to settle in at my desk. Get a cup of tea while my computer is booting up. I’ll scroll leisurely through my emails before things start ramping up. And I’ll likely be there in time to get one of those prized parking places near the entrance. It was a nice thought.

My exuberance quickly deflated, as I was forced to stop at each of the next 12 stoplights. EVERY.LAST.ONE.RED! Making me LATE for work and no better off had I stuck to my usual routine (I should point out here that on my usual racing out the door, bat-out-of-hell mornings, I am often met by a series of green lights, which position me to arrive early.) Go figure. It’s ironic, isn’t it?

When things like this happen.  When there is clearly a life lesson punching my shoulder saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” I generally try to stop to assess the situation. Thankfully I had plenty of time to do this on that morning. 12 stoplights…an average of a minute and a half at each…hey that’s a good 18 minutes of forced reflection.

You know that saying, “the best laid plans…” Well, I thought about that. As much as I try to prepare myself to be in control, I have no control. Things are gonna happen whether I put effort into them or not.  True, I can plan to be an active participant in the events and activities of my life, but there are just some things that won’t go according to my plan.  Nothing I do will change it, and it is impossible to anticipate when something might happen to mess things up.

There have been more than a few nudges from the Universe lately encouraging me to go with the flow. Which is interesting, because I am basically an easy going sort who is not ruffled by change. I generally do go…with the flow. The key, I think as it relates to the red lights in my life, is not that I’m not willing to change course, but that I still tend to set myself up with certain expectations. It seems those are the culprit. And I need to let go of them too.

Any more letting go, and I’m thinking it is possible I might just lift off and soar. Maybe that is the point. In the meantime, I need to remind myself to refrain from making a list of things I want to see, and where I want to go, when the time to soar does come!

Happy flying to you!

kat – 14 October 2015