Italy vs Holland

“Sometimes life takes you in a direction you never saw yourself going but it turns out to be the best and most beautiful journey you’ve ever taken.”

I read a short story once by Longtime Sesame Street writer Emily Perl Kingsley. It was something she had written to help people understand her experience of raising a child with disabilities, as her son was born with Downs Syndrome. She explains it as someone who’s planned and planned to take a vacation to Italy, only to board the plane and land in Holland.

Imagine the surprise and disappointment you might feel when you realized you’d reached the wrong destination. All your preparation, studying the Italian language, mapping out your trip, creating your itinerary, researching your destination, were all lost. Time wasted. Now you’re somewhere you didn’t want to be. At first you might not be able to look past the disappointment of not being in Italy to see what a beautiful place Holland was too. Yes, it’s different then you had planned but as you begin to open your eyes to your surroundings, you realize that even though it is not where you’d planned to be, you are still in a beautiful place.

Now I don’t know about you, but my life has certainly landed in a few places I did not plan for or expect to be either. How about it? Are you in the place you intended to be in your life? Or have you landed in Holland when you had planned to go to Italy? I would be willing to bet that most of us can say, our lives have taken several new routes and we haven’t always landed in our desired destination. 

But you know what? Life is often unexpected. It can land you in places you never intended or wanted to go. That doesn’t mean they are bad though. I mean, after all… with this story, you may not end up in Italy as planned but Holland is probably pretty amazing too. It’s just different and if you can let go of the disappointment that you aren’t in the place you’d planned to be, then you can open yourself to the beautiful opportunities that await you. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t strive for where you want to go in life. What I’m saying is that sometimes life leads us other places or takes detours along the way. Embrace the place you are right now. Find the lessons and opportunities that this place is offering you. Find the beauty in it while you’re there and enjoy it until you move to the next destination. Who knows, if you open up to it and look around, you might find that it is exactly where you were meant to be.

***Want to get yourself set for a fantastic day, every day? Find out the 5 powerful questions that will help direct your thoughts to benefit you to the fullest!