Learning to Go With the Flow
Are you a planner or do you go with the flow well?
Hopefully you have a balance of a little of both. I’m more of a planner.
But when things go “wrong” or spontaneity is required, going with the flow is a little harder for me.

Going with the Flow
Three things I learned quite a few years ago may help you as well.
Lesson 1 – Embrace the unexpected – I was sitting in my cubicle at my office and one day my boss offered to pay for a trip to the one place I would go above all others…Paris.
Unexpected and exciting! Pretty easy to embrace these types of unexpected happenings.
If you’ve ever started planning something and someone didn’t follow through for some reason, it may have felt like your entire project/plan was not going to work. I started planning with a girlfriend who wanted to go too, and a month later she got laid off and decided not to go even though I was willing to wait a year or two. Lesson 2 – When others don’t follow thru for whatever reason, breathe, things may just end up a little different than what you had planned, but it will be okay.
I followed thru on my own and planned for a tour with a group starting in London, the surrounding English countryside, the Loire valley in France and ending in Paris.
The Saturday night before my flight the next day, I was all packed and ready to go and then … BREAKING NEWS. Princess Diana dies in a car crash in a Paris tunnel. I teared up immediately, thought this cannot possibly be true – – – And then at some point started wondering how this was going to impact my trip.
Lesson 3 – When the world is falling down around you, don’t panic. It could just become one of the most enriching times of your life
I didn’t get an email or a call, so I got on the plane. If you remember or saw pictures of that time, I was there. The acres of flowers people had brought and the lines that went forever to sign the memorial book. Talking to the English people who were pretty doggone mad at the queen because they felt she was being disrespectful of Diana when she stayed in Balmoral Castle in Scotland, instead of coming back to London. When I got to Canterbury, I even got to sign one of the books when they added more to the various cathedrals throughout England. And in Brighton the whole tour group sat in a hotel eating lunch and watching the funeral procession together. I even went thru the tunnel that she died in in Paris.
I had the best trip of my life because not only did I get a chance to see the places I’ve always wanted to visit, but I felt like I was part of history, I felt close to my fellow man, and had one of the most enriching times of my life, all because I was willing to go with the flow.
The next time you have a plan interrupted or don’t want to be spontaneous, I dare you to go with the flow, embrace the unexpected; if others don’t follow thru, breathe, it may just be a little different; and when the world looks like it’s falling apart, don’t panic – because if you can manage to go with the flow ideas will follow, the universe seems to line up, and things will generally turn out better than you expect.
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