Most of us live with some version of a plan.
Things we need to do.
Things we'd like to do.
Responsibilities we can't ignore.
Goals we're working towards.
Perhaps even a fairly clear picture of where we'd like our lives to go. Planning can be useful. I certainly don't think we need to stop making plans. But life has an interesting habit of participating in them.
We can make plans for the week.
Set goals for the month.
Have a vision for the year.
And still wake up to a day that asks something completely different from us.
The day we planned and the day we actually have
Perhaps you planned to be productive, but your body wanted a slower pace.
Perhaps you expected an ordinary day, but someone needed your attention.
Perhaps an unexpected responsibility appeared.
Perhaps the weather changed what you intended to do.
Perhaps you received news you weren't expecting.
Or perhaps nothing significant happened at all.
You simply woke up and realised that today feels different.
I've been thinking about how easily we can measure a day against what we expected from it.
- Did I get enough done?
- Did I make progress?
- Did I do what I said I would do?
- Was I productive enough?
Those questions aren't necessarily wrong.
But perhaps they aren't the only questions available to us.
What has today been asking from me?
This is a question I've been sitting with:
What has today been asking from me?
- Some days may ask for action.
- Some may ask for patience.
- Some may require decisions.
- Some ask us to have conversations we'd rather avoid.
- Some ask for courage.
- Some may ask us to adapt when things don't go according to plan.
And occasionally, a day seems to ask us to do less. Not because our goals have disappeared. Not because what matters no longer matters.
But because today has its own conditions.
Listening doesn't always mean stopping
I think it's easy for conversations about listening to ourselves to become conversations about rest.
Sometimes rest is what we need.
But not always.
Listening might tell us that it's time to act.
- To make the phone call.
- To finish something we've been avoiding.
- To leave the house.
- To speak.
- To make a choice.
- To try again.
Sometimes listening asks more of us, not less.
Perhaps the point isn't to always choose the easier or slower option.
It could simply be to notice what is actually here before automatically following what we thought today was supposed to look like.
Today exists alongside the bigger picture
There are things that take months or years to build.
- A career.
- A business.
- A relationship.
- A body of work.
- A practice.
- A different way of living.
We can't make every decision according to how we feel in one particular moment.
But perhaps we don't have to ignore the moment either.
The bigger picture and today's reality can exist together.
I can care about where I'm going while also noticing where I am.
I can have a plan and adapt it.
I can value consistency without expecting every day to look identical.
I can keep moving towards something without treating today as merely a stepping stone to somewhere else.
Before today becomes yesterday
Most days don't announce themselves as important.
They simply arrive.
We live them.
And eventually, they become yesterday.
So perhaps alongside all the questions about what we are building, achieving, changing, healing, creating, or working towards, there is room for one much smaller question:
What has today been asking from me?
And maybe another:
Have I been listening?
Tomorrow will have its own answer.
But this one belongs to today.