For most of my life, I’ve often been the planner. In my friend groups, I was usually the one who would initiate hanging out or doing some sort of an activity. Not always, but it seems the majority of the time, it fell to me.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed being able to be the catalyst that allowed others to come together. The times that I got the most irritated was when I would once again be the person in which the get together was riding upon if it were to happen, and then others being ungrateful or not enjoying the event (it was great prep for parenthood from what I hear;).

It was frustrating to put time into something that others didn’t appreciate.

What it came back to was my serial people-pleasing mentality. As I heard one of my good friends say, “I’m a recovering people pleaser.” I did EVERYTHING around how I thought others would perceive an event. Some of this was good. I allow you to really be perceptive and think about others, but in reality, you are mostly thinking about yourself. The only reason you care what others think is because of how that will then help them care about you.

Perhaps most frustrating of all is when you plan something and things go wrong that are outside anyone’s control. One random example I think of is, oh, I don’t know, maybe a virus that shut down the entire world for several months?

You have all the expectations of what something is going to look like and then something changes or cancels it completely. It’s so hard to see that happen.

But what I’ve come to realize is that these moments where things go completely not how you expect them can be the best times you’ll ever have, and much more memorable because something was changed from how you thought it was going to be.

Tonight I planned to take a couple of my friends up to watch sunrise off a lookout spot in Austin, but the roads were terrible so we got there a little later and there were clouds all throughout the sky, so the sunset wasn’t too vibrant.

However, it ended up being an incredibly peaceful evening and beautiful in its own way. I know that each of us will remember the memory, at least for a while, probably much more than we would remember it if the event were exactly as we originally planned it.

The times where “everything goes wrong” can turn into the best spontaneous adventure out there, but it all starts with a mindset being okay with whatever happens. Part of the mindset has been and I know will be helpful as I pursue a long-distance relationship. Once you’ll go with the flow and be happy wherever. That’s when the worst of times can become the best of times