Throw an eyeball over your shoulder and look back 10 years. You had plans didn’t you? You had a crystal clear picture of who you 10 years from that point was supposed to be, what he/she will be doing, where he/she’ll be living and who with. You had a plan of how you’re gonna feel constructed from the limited experience of the decade younger you. You knew exactly how it will unfold, right? How did that work out for you? Was it a straight trajectory to that place or a squiggly line of a kid just learning to hold a pencil and convincing you that a hieroglyphic contortionist line on the paper in bright green is a giraffe? The universe laughed and laughed, fell on the floor and ROLF-ed a bit holding its stomach that you believed it was going to go down exactly as you planned. Depending on the detail you went into when planning, sometimes it was a chuckle, sometimes a bashful barely seen Mona Lisa style “I now something you don’t” smile and sometimes a straight up LOL. But you’re not the butt of a cosmic joke.

You might have even gotten what you wanted or are standing at the brink of getting it (we don’t always know what we want, but if we live our truth we might just get what we need and that is far better) but it probably didn’t go as planned, not by a long shot. You’ve encountered things you never envisioned as being a part of the journey, things you couldn’t even conceptualize until they happened, you’ve been sucker punched and surprised at every corner and, if you didn’t wall yourself in, you’ve learned more than you though possible along the way of this squiggle. If you don’t pretend and just follow the flow you’ll eventually be given all the information you need to be happy and appreciate the place and situation you end up in. This will require not lying to yourself or others about anything – from personal preference of a unique dream or your private morality to the nature of the universe that masks lessons as problems, difficulties, hurdles, loss, fear and stress. You need all of these things you moan about now. They are so much more information dense than comfort of stagnation. If you don’t choose to be uncomfortable to grow the uncomfortableness will be imposed by something from the real sooner or later just by the sole fact of you ignoring its possibility. Don’t try to keep one inhale until you’re blue in the face, don’t squeeze your hands to tight around anything, don’t force sameness when mutation and movement is all there is, don’t identify to strongly with any current belief, vision of the future or means of getting to that future. The cosmic joke is that even if it happens exactly as you imagined – it is a fluke, an anomaly in the chaos theory, an accident unreproducible again because all of the factors change all the time. No matter how hard you squeeze you can’t hold all of the water in your palm, no matter how hard you wish to keep relationships in the exact same place or clear a pristine straight path it doesn’t work as a long term strategy.

Open your eyes, close your mouth, listen, learn, recognize the patterns, see and adapt. The next time universe laughs (and it will) at your pompous belief you know everything, laugh with it, join the cosmic giggle and then let it show you what arises from the master plan. You’ll get somewhere, maybe not where you intended to go, in the time you set aside to get there or through the route you imagined, but you’ll get there, or somewhere better, or somewhere worse… and it’s all ok, all of it is temporary and transient. Enjoy the journey and laugh where you can. Comic relief is here to diffuse anxiety and fear, as an antidote to dogma and resentment. Even if it is no laughing matter, being able to laugh at yourself will keep you sane through insane times. Laugh.