My friend John is working on a real estate project in the middle of nowhere Montana. To spend time with him, I’ve occasionally been staying in an apartment at his remote job site. We are currently stuck in that apartment for an indeterminate amount of time due to a winter storm that created snow drifts and wind gusts too high for even a commercial-grade backhoe to tackle. We are safe and have plenty of supplies. Although the road is impassable by car, we can easily walk and ski over the drifts on the one-mile private road to find a ride to town.
Yet, I’m opting to stay put because I just have a feeling that there is something I am supposed to learn from this experience with John.
I’m a Type A entrepreneur. I love feeling productive. I like to feel as if I’m moving forward and making progress regardless of what might be standing in my way. As an exceptionally talented planner and time-optimizer, I always have an agenda and a schedule for the week ahead. Yet, as a recent wind and snowstorm reminded me, life can get in the way of even the best-laid plans.
I’ve weathered many figurative and literal storms in my life. I’m an innovative and resourceful entrepreneur, which means I can usually find a way to accomplish the things on my to-do list, regardless of what curve balls are thrown my way. Yet, after surviving cancer, a pandemic, and all of the unexpected events that inspired Imperfectly Honest, I’ve learned that when life puts an impassable ten-foot drift in your way, you might have more to gain by staying put than by pushing forward.
I feel certain that this force of nature telling me to sit still and embrace the uncertainty has more to teach me than the list of tasks I was planning to check off this week. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I want to leave you with a few of the quotes I will be keeping in mind this week:
“The quality of your life is directly related to how much uncertainty you can comfortably handle.” ― Tony Robbins
“The future is uncertain… but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.” ― Ilya Prigogine
“Our best-laid plans are often our worst-made decisions.” ― Craig D Lounsbrough
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” ― Oscar Wilde
Onward and upward.
