In the moment

Balancing having ambitious goals at the same time as keeping high expectations at bay is the one thing I continue to struggle with.

One thing I have realised is most of my heart ache surrounding my breakup is not so much about missing him but it is the grief of loosing the future I so vividly imagined with him. I have been so hung up on the fact that I thought I was going to be married and have at least one child in the next two years and I really wanted to try and incorporate more travelling into that future life.

I miss what hadn’t even happened yet more than what I actually had and I cannot help being annoyed at my self for dreaming up this life and leaving my self vulnerable when it didn’t eventuate.

I have a similar sense of grief around loosing my mother. At least half of my heart ache is around what I will miss in the future and how it is never going to be the way I wanted it to be. If I do ever get married and have a child, she won’t be there…and there is nothing I can do about it.

So at what point do I stop setting goals and dreaming in order to avoid heart ache? It seems like I should stop doing both so that whatever comes next I don’t attach an expectation onto it. My new promotion, any new relationships or friendships I fall into, my new found bond with my family, I feel like I need to just ignore the urge to think about the future and live in the moment.

But what if I live in the moment and miss opportunities? What if not setting an expectation of what the future can hold for me lands me on my ass for lack of planning ahead?

How do I balance being happy and chasing dreams without leaving my self vulnerable?

Life is not a career. In a career you can take logical steps towards a goal. You can expect certain behaviours to create certain responses. Work is such a controlled environment where setting a goal can actually be achieved. But the rest of life is not like that… And I do not know what I am meant to do about it.

For now I am saving money where I can and that’s about as much life planning I have managed for the past 6 months. I don’t know where I’ll be in my life next month let alone this time next year. I just hope fate will guide the way for now while I figure out if/when I should take the reins again.