I love making transitions, at least once I decide to make them and I’m sorting my way through. It’s like forging a new path when you’re tired of the scenery in the old one. But when change is made for you, against your wishes, that’s another story. I know this. Change is a catalyst, even when we have know idea what kind of trajectory our lives may take next. It pushes us in directions we never would have chosen on our own.

I’ve heard many people say through the years that “everything happens for a reason.” Which is great and I’m sure in retrospect this is true. But when you feel like life is out of your control and there’s not much you can do about it but ride the storm and see where you end up, it’s the last thing you want to hear. Change has a plan, separate from mine, and we can’t feed it excuses or convince it to move on to someone else.

I was watching my new favorite channel HGTV. In it, a young couple were getting married and looking to buy their first house together. But they didn’t look at this purchase as a step in a new direction, they looked at it as the finish line. They wanted to buy a house that they would live in forever. I was shocked. When did twenty-somethings start thinking this way? They were planning their whole future before they had even lived through the present.

While I have no idea what will happen to them, I did feel better knowing that I embraced change a little more than they did. But did that make me happier in my day-to-day life, thinking about how my plans might get screwed up? No. So maybe I could learn something from the young schoolteachers. There’s a balance in here somewhere, and a normal, boring routine feels even better. Maybe it’s okay to expect good things without mapping out every possible disaster.