Shock & Awe, My Friend.

👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻 This was me a couple of weeks ago, with my husband staring at my face saying “What?! WHAT?!?!”, but somehow not turning around to see what I was staring at. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We were camping at a magical place in West Texas that I’m inclined to keep a secret so it doesn’t become overrun with people, but also know that I don’t really need to worry about it because 99.9% of people will NEVER go there for this long list of reasons:

➡️ It’s 3 hours from any city

➡️ Then it’s an hour drive down a dirt road (preferably in a high clearance vehicle) 

➡️ You have to carry in your own food, water, ice, light… everything

➡️ And then you have to carry it all out

➡️ You have to drive at least a couple of miles on a dirt road to find a toilet, therefore…

➡️ You WILL definitely be peeing in the bushes. Or more accurately, the cactuses 🌵🌵🌵

➡️ It’s a mile long hilly hike on a dirt road (no cars) to get to the most pristine water you’ve ever seen

There’s also not a whole lot to do there, except:

1) fish 🎣
2) hike a 12 mile loop where you’re unlikely to see any other humans 🥾
3) bird watch 🦅
4) look at the stars 🤩

…which is exactly what I was doing when I saw something I’ve never seen before. 💫

If you’re a fan of tiny, magical moments (as am I), then you’re no stranger to the flutter of wonder that comes from seeing a shooting star. Usually, one will appear and disappear so fast that you barely have time to take it in yourself, let alone bring anyone else’s attention to it.

These magical moment are so rare and fleeting that they inspired a song made famous by Perry Como in 1957:

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day

And that’s exactly what I was expecting when I caught a glimpse of a shooting star in the dark, dark desert sky.

I reacted with a gasp (as one does) fully expecting it to disappear in an instant. But instead, it kept going…and going…and going. And I kept staring…and gasping…and pointing for what I can only describe as a comically long time. Five seconds? Eight seconds? Long enough that I could have said:

“Oh my god babe turn around and look at what I’m seeing it’s so f*cking magical it will blow your mind look look look right now!”

But I didn’t.

I didn’t say that because I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting it to disappear as quickly as it appeared. Instead it went on and on and on for what felt like an eternity.

When it finally faded into the horizon, where the moon was just beginning to rise and I could finally speak, all I could say was, “WOW! That was incredible!”.

The experience got me thinking about a couple of things:

ONE: How f*cking lucky am I to have this incredibly magical experience served up to me by the universe?!?!

And TWO: We’re so accustomed to things going the way we expect them to. How often do we miss opportunities for magic because we look away too soon?

More specifically >>> how often do we get what we’ve always gotten because we EXPECT to, thereby limiting the universe’s power (and our own!) to create something new and UNexpected?

If you’re constantly planning your future results based on your past experiences, then you’re cutting yourself off from the power to create the unexpected.

This might look like planning for:

*a little more* free time—I’m going to take one long weekend!
*a little more* revenue—I’m going to make 10% more!
*a little more* enjoyment—I’m going to make this suck just a little bit less! 

These are all *reasonable* expectations…if you believe that you have to work a little bit harder to get a little bit more of what you want.

But what if that’s just one way of looking at things? What if there’s a whole other approach that could have you living an entirely different experience even faster than you can imagine?

(Quantum Physics, anyone?)

If you’re planning for the future to be just incrementally better than the past, because that’s what seems reasonable and safe to expect, then you’re missing out on what COULD BE if you opened yourself up to a whole new way of thinking about what’s possible for you.