No Plans!

It's my motto for a reason.
No Plans!!!
This started over 10 years ago while I was traveling through Europe.  On our travels my friend Will and I adopted this motto. We learned real quick that if you planned for something you had a high chance of  being disappointed when it fell through, but more importantly of possibly missing out on something even better. We found ourselves both saying it out loud quite often, so that it sort of turned into a mantra.

Don't get me wrong... have guidelines, hopes and/or ideas of where you'd like things to go or end up.
But nothing can be, nor should it be, set in stone. You've got to leave you're options open and not get down when things change or don't turn out the way you expected.

You just never know what may be around the corner, who may be there to lend you a hand & show you a different direction, or how you may lose out on something only to get something better... The list goes on.
I've learned this both the hard way & in the best ways possible.

I was reminded of this again yesterday when I found out that I'll need to start looking for a new job soon. So be it, this isn't where I expected to be forever. 2 + years is not a bad stint.

No Plans!

A few fitting quotes I found...

"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable." ~Wendy Wasserstein

"Dreaming is one thing, and working towards the dream is one thing, but working with expectations in mind is very self-defeating." ~ Michael Landon

"Well, for us, it's always better not to have too many expectations and to just go with the flow because then it's always a big plus no matter what happens." ~Ville Valo

Switch out the word 'book' with 'life' (well it works for part of it)....
"Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning."
— Virginia Woolf

The following is only half-right, but still a good read. (I think the world has more than we can ever hope for, but it rarely gives us what we want)...
"When we pick up the newspaper at breakfast, we expect - we even demand - that it brings us momentous events since the night before...We expect our two-week vacations to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless..We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy...to go to 'a church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer."
— Daniel J. Boorstin

"[T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16)"
— Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

"Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

“I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.” ~ Gestalt prayer

“When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have”
Stephen Hawking quotes (English Physicist, b.1942)

These two kind of go against what I'm saying, but not really...

"If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed.
Apart from a few starry-eyed poets or monks living on a mountaintop somewhere, however, we all have expectations. We not only have them, we need them. They fuel our dreams, our hopes, and our lives like some super-caffeinated energy drink."
— Tonya Hurley (Homecoming)

"Excellence is the Result of Caring more than others think is Wise, Risking more than others think is Safe, Dreaming more than others think is Practical, and Expecting more than others think is Possible."
— Ronnie Oldham