A Life without Plans

Last night I watched a captivating1958 film called Inn of the Sixth Happiness, based on the true story of a British maid named Gladys Aylward (played by Ingrid Bergman), who sets off alone for China in the 1930’s to become a missionary. When the Japanese invade in 1937, she bravely leads 100 children over the mountains to safety.

Colonel Lin Nan, a Chinese officer who is part Dutch (played by Curt Jurgens), falls in love with Gladys, the willful, single-minded British spinster. He has to make a choice between what his heart tells him and his sense of duty.

When the old Mandarin asks Colonel Lin Nan why he chose in favor of duty, the Colonel resignedly says, “My life is planned.”

The Mandarin responds, “A life that is planned is a closed life, my friend. It can be endured perhaps. But it cannot be lived.”

It makes me think of how often I limit myself by planning. At this time of year I often set out a list of intentions for the New Year—all with a view towards having an “ideal life” where everything is perfect. What could be wrong with that? Why wouldn’t anyone want to set goals to have their life more happy, more healthy, more meaningful? I’ve been well acculturated by society to do better, be a good person, and be productive.

In terms of this “apparent” world, planning is necessary. I, like everyone else, need to make a budget plan, to plan ahead for a trip, to plan for different contingencies. But what I often overlook is that by setting out goals and objectives I am sometimes putting unseen limitations on my life. How do I know that “my” plan is God’s plan? As the mandarin says, a planned life is a “closed life,” where there is very little room for life to happen, for life to surprise me, for my heart to open.

If I really want to be honest with myself, most of my plans are because I don’t feel OK with my life just as it is. I plan so that I will feel safe in a world that is not safe. I plan in the hope of finding some future happiness once I have reached my goals.

The problem is that all these plans are made by the egoic mind, whose only concern is to avoid find pleasure and avoid pain. The human ego sees the world from the perspective of separation, and is incapable of seeing the bigger picture. It is notoriously unreliable when it comes to making choices that will benefit our awakening to greater peace and happiness.

All our resolutions and goals — as well-intended as they may be — are based on faulty perception. Although we may get what we want from our goals (or what our ego wants), we probably won’t be any closer to finding what we really want–true happiness. What if we were able to see the underlying perfection of our life right here, right now in this moment? What if we could see that nothing needs to be changed or improved? Once we’re content to greet life exactly as it is, especially the things we didn’t plan for, then we can truly relax and be at peace.

At the beginning of the year I posted a blog that began with a quote by the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello. This year I’ll end with the same quote and “plan” to understand it more fully in 2010:

“You want to hope for something better than what you have right now, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be hoping. But then, you forget that you have it all right now anyway, and you don’t know it.”