Why?

There are so many things in life that I question. Life is full of uncertainties and though I love surprises and being spontaneous, I like to have an idea of what might be planned for the next day. I struggle with not having a plan in place for the week to come. Whenever something changes my plan, I find myself asking, why? Why did that have to come up this week? Why in the world did I do that? Why do I have to be the one to deal with this? Why can't I just escape from all of this? I think you get the point. The thing about why questions is that they focus mostly on the person who feels they are being targeted...me. I want to know the reason I am having to deal with the curve balls. I want to know what I did to set off the chain of events that are hurling themselves toward me at speeds I sometimes cannot brace myself for. In my mind, I should not have to deal with curve balls or lemons (whatever you would like to call those oh-so-blessed trials). At the risk of sounding like a little kid, I basically am saying "this isn't fair!" when things don't go my way.
There are so many paths that I have thought were correct. I pick and choose the answers that best answer my "why" questions, and by "best" I mean, make me feel better about myself. During these twists down the path, I tend to either look down at my feet, back at the path I have left behind, or at the one tree right in front of me. I neglect to look ahead and view the whole forest. I do not and cannot see the big picture. And, to be honest, if I were to see the big picture, I would probably be so overwhelmed that it would just make matters worse.
Looking down at my feet while walking allows me to not trip, but it also allows me to miss out on the things around me. When I look back, I focus on trying to figure out what tripped me up, or how I got to where I am.  And, looking at one thing right in front of me causes me to have a very narrow viewpoint of where I am. I see one pine tree and think I am in the south, when really I am in a forest up north.

I'm not perfect, which I am very thankful for. I enjoy the fact that my story is not finished, but rather it is in the process of being written, and the beautiful thing about that is there is still room to grow and change. I am still able to learn from my mistakes and remind myself that focusing on the path behind me only complicates things further.
Sometime, the view in front of us is more breathtaking than we realize. And, the sad thing is, most of the time all we have to do is look up or look forward to take it all in...