I am going to propose to my girlfriend. She designed her ring with a custom jeweler, but they didn’t tell her when the ring was going to be ready. She wanted it to be ready before we went on a trip to Zion National Park, so I could propose there. But I wanted it to be a surprise.
So, I secretly visited the jeweler to ask them not to notify her when the ring was ready. The plan was: they would notify me when the ring was ready, I would go pick it up, and they would tell my girlfriend that the ring wasn’t going to be ready before our trip. And then, boom! I would catch her by surprise by proposing with the beautiful views of the canyon.
My phone rang one day, and the jeweler excitingly notified me the ring was ready for pickup. Everything was going according to plan. Then, 10 minutes after I hung up, my girlfriend came and told me, “My ring is ready! Can you go pick it up?” And I was like, “What? How do you know it’s ready?”
Well, turns out she got the email. The jeweler didn’t do what I asked her to do: Not notify her! She completely ruined my surprise.
For a few minutes, I felt disappointed and angry. How can you mess up something so simple? Something so delicate as a proposal surprise? You had one job! Come on! How hard could not sending an email be?
But then I just let those emotions go. Because what’s the point? What’s done is done. I couldn’t do anything about it. What I could do, I did. And that was planning the surprise and asking the jeweler to notify me instead. Her actually doing it, that was completely out of my control, as it became evident.
One of the core ideas of Stoic philosophy is to focus on the things we can control and not dwell on the things we cannot control. In Catholic or religious circles, they say, “you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.” Which is kind of corny, maybe silly, but you get the point. And the Yogis would agree with both perspectives, reminding us that everything that happens, happens the way it’s supposed to happen.
Most plans involve other people, and you can’t control them. So my lesson moving forward is to continue planning the things that need planning, but at the same time, be unattached to the actual outcomes. Because attachment invites disappointment.
Sometimes, often, plans fail. Unexpected things happen. People mess up. And we can complain and moan about them and throw a tantrum, or we can just surrender and allow them to happen. Because what other option do you have? Hopping into a time machine and changing what just happened?
Focus on what you can control and allow the rest to unfold. Accept it as it comes. Embrace it. Don’t be attached to specific outcomes, and you will avoid being disappointed.
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