The beauty of unplanned changes

I was talking to a friend the other day and we had a lengthy discussion about the Judging(J) and the Perceiving(P) in MBTI. The conversation went like this:

Friend: I was trying to shower care to choose a dinner place close to the MRT station so that you can come easily after work. 

Me: But i can’t choose a mode of transportation one week in advance. I may not take the MRT. And besides, how do i know what will happen that day? I could be working from home for all I know.

Friend: Roll eyes.

That’s when the story of Js and Ps came to play. My friend being a J, interprets my lack of planned decision as indecisiveness. But i beg to differ.

As Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher said, the only thing that is constant is change. If that were to be the case, how can we plan all things in life? For me, the beauty of change lies in the unknown, in not knowing what is going to happent to me that day nor how the day will end.

Let’s first take a look at how this can play out for the small things in life:

At 4 pm yesterday, I set out to go for a facial even though it was pouring. As to be expected, Uber took forever to come and I ended up being stuck on the highway. Looking at the time, I realised it was impossible to make it in time for my appointment.

My J friend would probably say : you should have set out earlier, it started pouring way before anyway. That is true, I admit sadly.

Anyway, the P in me decided to change plans and head to Orchard using the same route to get myself a coffee grinder which I have been eyeing forever in order to make full use of a pack of coffee beans which a dear friend bought me for Christmas. I love it when consumption creates consumption. When was the last time a friend got you a gift for which you needed additional accessories in order to make us of the precious gift ???

As with all things in life, the path of seamless shopping never seems to run smooth, not even when one is desperately trying to contribute to the somewhat grim state of economy right now. The uber driver goes out the wrong exit and I needed up at OG – auntie haven.

I then changed my mind for the umpteen time in the past hour. Unable to find my coffee bean grinder at OG, I decided to get myself a bright red suitcase in preparation for all the trips that were to come this year!

And I was very proud of how my afternoon panned out. The thing about Ps is that we go with the flow and we never plan things in advance. I’ve been wanting to get myself a new suitcase but since its not all that urgent, I decided there was no need to make a special trip down unless the opportunity presented itself.

At this point, my J friend would say, you could have saved so much time if only you had planned in advance.

Perhaps. But hey, what’s the rush ?

Now to take a look at the big stuff:

At work last year, I would never to have expected that the President’s scandal in Korea would jeopardise my plans for an event planned for eons. What is to be even more unexpected is that it had to be cancelled the week before! With additional time on my hands, I diverted my attention to a challenging issue which I had not planned to take charge before the sudden change in plans.

Fortunately, we managed to handle the issue well despite the short turnover time. Looking back, I wonder if this is what we called fate or destiny. I was never supposed to be involved in that project and yet it became the highlight of my career in a new company.

The believers may say : He has plans for each and every one of us.

I say: Change is constant. The important thing is to be flexible and jump at the opportunities life presents us with, whether or not they were planned.

After all, the beauty in life lies in unplanned changes.