Choosing Messy and Spontaneous Over Perfect

All things considered, there are really only two types of people in the world. There's the organized go-getters with to do lists for everything type of people, and there's the spontaneous, kinda messy, do-things-on-a-whim and never really plan ahead types. If you know anything about me, you likely know I fall into the second camp. I'm not saying every part of my life is a disorganized mess obviously (I hope no one's actually is!), but I am saying that it's more natural for me to let things come as they may, and "go with the flow." Especially when it comes to my personal life.

The funny thing is, I wasn't always this way (or at least, not completely ;). When I was still in college, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to be doing as soon as I graduated. But life happens and things change. I graduated with a lack of clear direction and a significant amount of anxiety to go along with it. But after a lot of patience, trust, and several conversations with God gently reminding me to relax, I realized maybe a wide open space of possibility was better than a fixed path after all. Yet the more I look around me, the more I realize this way of thinking runs a little contrary to the way our society is wired.

Just take a look at the way corporate culture is set up. It's all about perfectly pleated professional clothing, polite emails and ten-year strategies. And it makes sense when you think about the way companies run - keeping a standard of professionalism, while not always "fun," helps people focus on the job at hand. But sometimes that same aura of nice and neat and polished starts to seep into our understanding of what kind of people we should be, of how we should have lives that are perfectly compartmentalized, organized and clearly planned out.

But you know what? I've been living with myself for the past twenty-three years and I have come to the happy acceptance that I'm not that type of person, and I'll never really be. Sure, I have goals and dreams and aspirations, and of course I see the value in discipline. But I don't know exactly where I'll be in ten, much less twenty years. And you know what? I like it that way.

I don't want my life to be a series of perfectly met schedules and fixed life goals. I don't want to box myself in with to-do lists and routines that won't allow me to take a different route home just for the heck of it. I'd rather my life be a random arrangement of dreams and impulses and coincidences. A bit messy, sure - but when is life ever not?

At the end of the day, it brings me comfort to rest on this: God is constant and stable, and He's the only thing in our lives that will never change. The rest of life will ebb and flow and evolve - whether we want it to or not. So I'll move and grow and change along with it, knowing that my heart is always safely anchored in Him. That's about all the security I need.

#2016 #life