Last week marked the beginning of March Madness, and tens of millions of people filled out their brackets. Perhaps you were one of them—I was. For the first time in a very long time I filled one out, and it’s interesting how doing so affected the way I’ve been tracking the tournament.
In previous years, where I didn’t have a bracket, I was totally open to whatever happened. I’d root for the home team, of course, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the upsets and bracket busters. But this year, where I had my predictions (and a desire to do well in my group), the only upsets I wanted to see where the ones that I had called. I didn’t want low-ranked schools knocking off the higher seeds. And instead of last-second heroics, I was totally content with seeing the teams I had picked leading comfortably the entire game.
Thankfully, though, things didn’t go according to my plan. If they had, we would have missed some of the extraordinary endings and upsets. And that’s usually how it goes. Often, it’s the unpredicted games that we remember—when the teams that few had picked go on to make history. But many of those memories would never have happened if the teams had simply fulfilled the predictions set out by the experts.
The same thing holds true about our futures. We may have plans that look great on paper. But if everything goes exactly as we plan—or as others plan for us—I wonder how many memorable moments we may end up missing out on along the way.
Planning is good. But focusing so much on what we think we want that we fail to embrace the moments we’re in, can keep us from fully enjoying the unplanned, unexpected twists in the journey—the twists that serve to make our lives that much more memorable in the long run.