Save Room for the Unimaginable

It’s the time of year when people are making resolutions, plans, and goals for themselves. They’re picturing who they want to be and what they want to do this year. Someone asked me if I had any resolutions and the answer is no because my biggest lesson of 2024 was, “Stay in the moment because you don’t have a clue how things will turn out.

Over and over again life surprised me with curveballs both good and bad. Longtime friends drifted out of my life. New ones arrived on my doorstep. High-paying clients stopped providing me with work. New ones took their place. I couldn’t have predicted any of it. So instead of making lists of what I want to accomplish, I’m embracing something poet Mary Oliver said: “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” As someone prone to worry, the “unimaginable” is often synonymous with “terrible.” Things like, “An earthquake is going to swallow me up!” or, “My dear friend is going to get hit by a bus!”

antelope canyon -- spiritual writer

What’s around the bend? We have no idea. Photo by Dirk Spijkers on Unsplash

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Mary Oliver meant when she said keep room for the unimaginable. I suspect she meant, “Allow room for wonder, possibility, and joy.” When I read her quote, I feel warmth in my heart and remember that good things can happen out of the blue like meeting new friends, getting accepted into a film festival, or finding out you’re pregnant. The unimaginable can be incredibly sweet even if it wasn’t planned.

What I’ve learned in an even deeper way over the past year is I’m not meant to know everything. Life isn’t meant to follow a script, or at least not one we have access to. My spiritual teacher says, “Human beings should always remember that living beings are only actors in the vast universal drama composed by [Cosmic Consciousness]. . . . One should remember: ‘We are only playing specific roles in a great drama. I will act properly according to the role I have been given in this drama.’ This is a person’s duty. It is meaningless for a person to think about anything more than this – about what is beyond oneʼs power.”

There are many, many things beyond my power but what I can control is how I’m showing up in the world. Am I overly focused on my plan, my story, and how I think things should go? Or am I softening into the great unknown and remembering to save room in my heart for the unimaginable? This year I’d like to do the latter. So maybe I have a New Year’s resolution after all.

I dream of a world where we remember life can be surprising and delightful. A world where we understand we are all actors in a drama we didn’t write and don’t have the script for. A world where in addition to our plans, we save room in our hearts for the joyfully unimaginable.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.

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