The Life That's Waiting for You

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”

~ Joseph Campbell

 

Sound familiar? Yeah, it's pretty familiar to me, too.

We're taught to plan. A lot. Everything. As if we can control it all down to the last bitty bit.

And we learn that our little belief in uber-control is a tad delusional, and kind of exhausting anyway.

There are other witticisms on this theme, too: "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans." Or "Life is what happens while you're making other plans."

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you," is attributed to the fab-inspiring maverick-mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

Campbell knew what he was talking about. He shared one story of how he'd made several thousand dollars before the market crash that preceded the Great Depression -- that was a lot of mool back then -- and then didn't make another cent for five years.

He probably had a few plans, too, and I'd bet that the crashed economy and five-year mool-drought wasn't one of them. That probably sounds pretty familiar to a whole lot of people right now.

This is why being familiar with the myths and archetypes -- and knowing that they're living us until we live them -- is a renewed and growing passion of mine (thanks, Heroine's Journey, forest, and Dark Night ... more on those below).

For Campbell, his Great Depression experience and others along the way were formative. Not desirable, but formative. As they are for us.

If we want to live an authentic life -- our authentic life -- we have to give up the life we planned, because chances are excellent that whatever we planned oh-so-carefully (yeah, been there, too) is pretty much a rehash of someone else's plan.

But the plans (and related beliefs) are familiar to us; they're comforting because we've been marinated and stewed and aged in them from the time we were tots.

"The Plan" is designed, often, to win us acceptance, a collection of groovy status symbols, an elevated place in the herd, and important things like Love.

It comes with a set of masks, that we wear so that we can be 'on plan'. One or two of them might be authentic.

But then something unexpected happens and we find ourselves very much 'off plan'.

Four-Wheelin' ... Off Plan

The Hero's and Heroine's Journey is a response to that little, nagging, pecking call that comes from somewhere deep within us -- something packed securely away somewhere, in some little cell or a dark little locked box stowed in the heart. Something in us that is wild and allergic to The Plan.

To answer the call -- the invitation -- we must do as the Knights of the Roundtable and so many other Journeyers did: find that dark, unknown, overgrown, not-path into a forest we've never traveled. That is, after all, where the wild things live.

Sometimes we enter that forest, or the Underworld, intentionally, through a wacky, 'wtf' dive into the Unknown. And sometimes we're sucked right in, kicking and screaming. I've done both, more than once. You, too?

That off-the-plan journey, and that forest, are the metaphors -- a few of them -- in the myths about giving up the life we planned, so we can enter into the adventure of living the life that's actually ours. Our authentic, unique life.

Campbell also reminds us that if we can see a path (that would be 'the plan', with its steps), it's someone else's. Our own path is revealed step by step.

Makes you a little nuts thinking about it, doesn't it? Going awol on The Plan and diving into the Great Unplanned?

Yep, the inner control freak feels way too out of control with that one. It's enough to give our proper, rule-and-plan-following selves a good case of the hives and some actual hyperventilation.

That explains the metaphors and symbols in the myths that guide us: the dark forest, night sea journey, Dark Night of the Soul, Hero/ine's Journey, replete with the terror of not-knowing, of adventuring, exploring, and experiencing sans Big Plan.

Yet many of us know from experience that the best-laid plans can crumble in the blink of an eye, so The Big Plan is really a sort of false security. That's one of the pearls of the Dark Night of the Soul.

It's strange to think that the only real security might actually be in our ability to surf and open to the adventure of the unknown and to discovering new landscapes. It's evolutionary, compared to the plan-and-control strategies we're taught.

My Aquarius-Uranian nature loves that; my Aquarius-Saturnine nature, not so much. They're in an ongoing dialogue on this one, mediated by my adventuring Venus and TLC'ing Cancer North Node. (There are those key archetypes again.)

But seriously, think about it: Isn't that when we feel most alive, the most joyful, and the most creative -- when we're exploring, not sure what might come next (and we really never know, anyway), experiencing something new rather than following that one, short, well-tread path to the little chunk of stale cheese left within our cage?

It's worth exploring, and the food's a whole lot better. ;)

I've shared other recent musings on Following Your Bliss, and on Transition, Transformation & The Hero's Journey (& other things) in my The Wake-Up Juice newsletter and in the blogs.

Love,

Jamie

Image Credits: Rafail Sergeevich-Levitsky, Bridge in the Woods; Gillis van Coninxloo, Forest-Landscape, 1598; Underwater cave, TripAdvisor.com

Comments

[Hermes Birkin]

I like you on facebook and follow through google reader!

[Jamie Walters]

Thank you, Hermes!