The First List of 13 is Getting to an End

This week is a little bit shorter for me in terms of the time I set for myself to get my List of 13 done. After some thinking an ondering, I decided to set my Lists of 13 with each New Moon, so theoretically I'll make 13 of these lists in a year. I don't want to change anything on my original planning (setting the deadline "before June"), but when I did the list (which coincidentally turned out to have 13 items) I wasn't planning making it later into a periodical thing in my life. I didn't check the date, the moon, the stars, the horoscope or anything. Truth to be told, I believe that if I would have tried to come up with something like this from the begining, I would have never occured to me.

However, as result of this idea, I'm left now with a list that doesn't fit into the timetable I set for myself later on. I had two chances: either I extend the list to make it to the next New Moon, or I make a suplementary list, and respect the rules of the first. This second one is the one I decided to do. I plan to keep the periodical activities (those that are of the "x times a week" nature) and replace the others with new activities to complete by the next New Moon. That list will probably be published when the current list reaches the deadline.

This thing about the list made me think about something quite common in our life: our reaction to unexpected changes. It may happen that we have plans and expect something to happen in a certain way, but then it doesn't, or maybe we don't have any particular plans at all, just a regular, normal, comfortable life and suddenly a task falls on us and distrupts our rutine. In such cases most people complain bitterly and act like a victim of the circumstances. However, how many try to adapt to the new circumstances? Just because something is unexpected, just because something falls out of our box or disrupts the flow of our life, it doesn't mean it's bad or that it has to be excluded. It may not be what you expected for, it may not be perfect, but if you embrace it, if you adapt, if you take the time to actually value it without any prejudging, you might be surprised.

No, it doesn't mean that you must accept everything, and lose yourself in the constant adapting to others - let's not twist the message out of its meaning - but it means that by being open and looking for ways to work around certain situations, we can find ways to enhance our life and enrich our days.