This morning on a flight to London I realized the last time I flew over the Atlantic was in 1999. How things have changed!
To fund that trip I worked for the Department of Environmental Protection researching and writing short “bios” for all of the waterways in south Florida. It’s amusing to think that I slaved away for months in a tiny windowless room infested with volumes of the driest information on water you could ever imagine to save up for what I thought was a journey of a lifetime. That summer trip was a chance to live with two of my closest friends in their homelands: Slovakia and Bosnia. I guessed that would be that last time I’d have the chance to freely roam around Europe before I joined the working world. What a journey it was… but at the time I could never have predicted the real journey.
Looking back, what has transpired in the last nineteen years has been unimaginable. At the time I was studying to become a mechanical engineer. I thought I was going to invent cool stuff, wear a business suite, and have all the fancy things that prestigious engineers have. I never could have predicted that career would last all of six months. If I knew that, would I have spent years in college learning all of the life lessons and meeting friends that became family? Probably not!
That was just the beginning! If I would have tried to predict my journey, there’s not an ice cube’s chance in hell I’d have come up with the one that transpired.
What do you think might happen if we all unpredict the journey? … Perhaps a world of possibility will open?
Saturday I saw the sign in the photo above at an awesome bike shop near Los Angeles and realized the depth of life in the words “Unpredict Your Journey.”
Our predictions confine us. Even with the widest of visions, we put limits on what we believe is possible. So many people throw around the saying “anything is possible,” but how many truly BELIEVE IT? Imagine being in each moment with the ultimate freedom of limitless potential.
Let’s put this in perspective: ANYTHING! This means everything, all, whatever—it’s all possible when we are completely open.
Yesterday I watched a video about Claire, a dying 18 year old that gets life deeper than 99.99% of the humans who have ever lived. She shared that there is so much freedom in knowing she is dying. She’s been sick since the day she was born and statistics say she should have been dead years ago. She’s never had to think about getting a career, paying the bills, planning for the future. She lives in the moment, because that’s all she’s ever had. Her presence, understanding, and awareness are unbelievable, especially for a person who is only 18. Why? Maybe because she’s never considered predicting her journey? When you finish reading, watch the video (or at least watch the speech she gives at the 25:00 minute mark).
Unpredict your Journey…. What is possible then?
The 20 year old that last flew across the Atlantic in 1999 could not have predicted she’d leave engineering at 24 and become a firefighter /paramedic; rise up the ranks; fight massive forest fires in the mountains of Montana; Connect with the Brotherbood Ride; ride a bicycle thousands of miles across the country while honoring fallen heroes; become the first female station officer in her fire department; travel lots; get roped into racing funny bikes; fall in love with a third career: coaching; learn what love is; start and run a business; totally transform from who she thought she was into someone that seems to be more and more “me” (whatever me might be) each day; retire from the fire service at 38; sell everything and move into a trailer; travel North America solo; travel the world; connect with thousands of people along the way; be sitting in a flat in London writing this blog for you while on a second European adventure; …. And continue on the unpredictable journey to ease everyone into Coddiwompling their own life’s journey.
Coddiwompling is unpredicting the journey. It’s the simplest way to live: head in a direction while being open to anything and everything. It’s removing the limitations that we all put on ourselves. It’s the way Claire has lived her entire life. It’s the way I am learning how to live more and more. Coddiwompling is the secret to happiness, fulfillment, and changing the world. We are all one thought from the freedom to live simply and simply live.
Unpredict Your journey. Your grand adventure can start Here.
Here is each moment. It is now. It is all the moments the rest of your life.
Being open and getting in tune with your insinctive wisdom in every “now” is realizing there is no “path” we must follow. Looking back we can each see the path we took, but there are trillions of different paths that we could have taken.
Last weekend I walked up a grassy hill with a friend. We meandered to the top without a plan. There was no path. When we looked back, we could clearly see the trampled grass where we walked that lead to the place we were standing, but we could have taken many different routes to get to where we were. In addition, when looking ahead, there were limitless choices of where to walk next. I now understand that life is the same. What if we all went on a walk with the aim to do good things and make a difference in the world while taking all limitations on “how to do it” off the table?
How? You are smarter than you think and you are designed to thrive: Listen to your instinct (your heart, gut feeling, wisdom within), take the next step (without the preconceived ideas or limits on what you can do or how it is supposed to be done), live in the now, trust, repeat.
Simply put: travel purposefully towards an unknown destination, Coddiwomple now!
Sill have questions? I’d love to chat with you more about it.
I have unpredicted my journey and life has never been richer.
What if you gave it a shot? What might be possible?
Try it on, see how it feels. You just might change the world.
Unpredict Your journey… Your grand adventure starts now.
… until the next revolution
Would you like to coddiwomple now?
Join me this summer for a group program on how to unpredict your journey:
Coddiwompling: Creatively Live the Life of your Dreams
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