The Life You Never Planned

I have never been able to tell you what I want to be when I grow up. I still can’t.

In the sixth grade, part of our yearbook entry was the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? You couldn’t leave it blank. You couldn’t say you didn’t know. So, I said a lawyer. I’m not sure how I picked that—I just pulled it out of the thin air. Never in my life did I actually think I would become a lawyer, but they needed an answer, so I gave them one.

I have also never been able to follow the exercises that ask you to imagine yourself in five, ten, or twenty years. How could I know? Who could possibly know? The future has always seemed elusive to me. Cloudy. Who knows how life will unfold? Who knows what will be encountered along the path?

Back in my corporate days, I had a secret pleasure: playing the game Zelda. This was the late 90s, and I was strangely drawn to it. I don’t remember much of the game, but one thing stands out to this day: the cave.

At one point in the journey, you enter a cave full of spiders. You need a way to defend yourself. But the tool you need—a slingshot—was something you encountered quite a while back on the path. At the time you encountered the slingshot, there was nothing special about it. No one told you what to do with it. But if you happened to notice it, and happened to pick it up, then when you finally got to the cave, you had exactly what you needed.

The slingshot sat there innocently, not calling any attention to itself. It was just there to be noticed. To be picked up. You didn’t even know why at the time; it just seemed like the right thing to do.

That is how I have felt about life. About calling. About “what do you want to be when you grow up.”

Take yesterday, for instance.

We went for a ride. I ride most days, but yesterday was a day of firsts. David, who is nine, has been working with a young colt named Gavilan. Over the past few months, David has taught him how to wear a halter, how to be brushed, how to be led, and how to wear a saddle. But beyond the skills, there is a relationship. Trust. Confidence.

Yesterday, when David got on his back, Gavilan didn’t even hesitate. Because David is young and small, the weight wasn’t an issue—but because he had built that trust, the “idea” of a rider wasn’t an issue either. Out we set: Jose leading Gavilan, David sitting proudly in the saddle, and alongside him, his younger brother Carlitos, bareback on Diamanté.

When we got to the beach we began to gallop—David for the first time on Gavilan, Carlitos for the first time bareback on Diamanté, me on Alegria recording it all.

It was amazing. And it was nothing I could have imagined.

Had you told me over two decades ago—back when I was playing Zelda to escape my corporate stress—that this would be my life, I would not have believed you. It was nothing I could have imagined.

But along the way, without really knowing why, I picked up “slingshots.” I followed breadcrumbs that appeared in the path—first one, then another. I learned to notice things that didn’t yet have a purpose.

Maybe the reason those five-year plans feel so elusive is that they require us to name a destination we haven’t even seen yet. They ask us to be “lawyers” when, as it turns out, we are destined to be riders.

It can be easy to worry about being lost when we aren’t moving in a straight line, but perhaps we are just gathering tools along the journey. We are picking up the slingshots and the trust and the quiet observations that we will need for a cave we haven’t yet entered—or a beach we haven’t yet galloped.

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. But I’m getting better at noticing what is lying in the path, waiting to be picked up.

A Note on ‘Gathering Your Slingshots’ (or following the breadcrumbs)…

If you feel like you can’t imagine what the future might hold, it doesn’t mean you are lost - you might just be in a season of gathering.

We are beginning a new, online, self-paced, guided journey on May 17th called The Return.

It is a practice of slowing down enough to notice the tools lying in your path, reclaiming your stance, and learning to trust the breadcrumbs—even when you don’t yet know what “cave” they are for. We’ll spend five weeks practicing the small, sovereign acts that help us move from “planning” your life to actually living it.

If you’d like to walk this part of the path with me, you can find the details and join us here.