I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.
Diane Arbus
Intention is a funny thing. It’s invisible and never looks the way we think it will. Often we don’t have all the information, we can’t see everything we need to see and our intentions lead us to failure, what we undertake turns out worse than the vision inside our heads. Other times, we see and know things intuitively. Stuff happens that we never imagined would happen, and people will garnish praise and credit upon our actions which turned out better than intended.
The problem with intention is that often times we imagine what the outcome is going to be and move or refuse to move based on those assumptions. If we see great things and they don’t happen, we take that failure personally and are reluctant to try again. If we see failure and experience success, sometimes we don’t know how to say thank you and accept a compliment.
Intention is a funny thing because it seems to miss the mark each and every time. But we need intention. Intention is what gets everything started. It is the spark that gets us to dream and work towards something. Intention has its purpose but it is most important to remember that with everything we intend, we must also accept the outcome and let go.
We have to act like children. Be open to the possibilities. Life is just a big chemistry experiment. Each and every day we mix one substance with another, we connect one person to another, we put one word with another, and it will either do something we’ve never seen before, or make a mess and blow up in our face.
Everything you do will turn out better or worse. Nothing will ever be the way you want it to be, but that is the whole point of living. That’s what makes each and every single day so exciting. Nothing is predictable and everything is possible. No matter your age, your marital status, or how tired you are shouldering the responsibility of parenting.
The key to success is not to stop intending, but to intend and intend a lot more. The key is to keep experimenting and working an entire lifetime. To work when everyone else watches tv, tangles themselves up in social media feeds, or become self absorbed in war waged with joysticks.
Intend to do a great many things, knowing that the results will not be what you envision. Don’t let that discourage you but simply increase the rate with which you intend things. Many things are probably are going to turn out to be worse than you thought, but something you cannot see also has a chance to turn out to be better. It’s a universal law of averages and the key to success is to relentlessly stack your efforts against those numbers.
Intention is a beautiful thing. Too many people are too shy or too hurt to intend to be great and plot the takeover of the world. They should take comfort that the world moves in mysterious ways, that nothing is written in the stars, and that anything is possible because no human failure is final. Everything can be better. You should strive and intend to be better, it’s after all what the powers of the universe have intended.
