LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Pico Iyer!

On the beautiful futility of making plans

Dearest Lovelets!

I have a theory that by the age of 40, everyone in the world could write a memoir called NOT EXACTLY WHAT I HAD PLANNED. Because how many of us are living the exact lives that we envisioned for ourselves when we were younger?

I know that I’m not.

According to all my carefully arranged plans from the 1990s, I’m supposed to be a happily married mother of two, living in a three-bedroom house in the suburbs, working as a journalist, and probably getting ready about now to become a grandmother.

Instead, I am a childless, twice-divorced, once-widowed novelist and memoirist, coming to you live from the top of a building in Central America, where I have just come from a week spent in the jungle with monkeys!

Nothing looks the way I thought it would look. Some of it has been more delightful than I expected, much of it has been more heartbreaking than I ever planned for — or thought I could survive. Yet here I am, living out the story that I am, at best, co-creating in collaboration with mysterious and invisible forces. It has been, at every turn, interesting to me to see where I end up, and I have gotten very good at saying that I have no cherished outcomes when it comes to plans big and small — and meaning it.

Our special guest this week is the brilliant and compassionate writer and traveler and lover of humanity, Pico Iyer — whom I am privileged to call a friend. Pico has traveled the world more extensively than anyone I have ever met, and has seen human beings in all their many guises and iterations, both good and bad. He has witnessed war and beauty, terrible tragedy and sublime generosity, deepest poverty and the highest privilege. He, more than most, know that precious little in this world ever goes the way we plan. Yet never once has he lost his conviction that it is a magnificent gift to be a human on this perilous journey. And his letter this week provides us with a reminder of why we must let go of the dream that everything should go our way in order, instead, to be fully present to the world in all its strange magic.

Onward, brave wanderers. I love you all!

Love, LG

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about making plans?

Darling little spigot of fresh questions — thank you for coming to sit with me today. I love our visits more than you could know. I love you more than you could imagine. And I delight in your explorations of the world, of your own being, of the meaning of what you call life.

So let’s go. About your plans . . .

There is a saying you humans have, that man makes plans and God laughs — and it is not strictly speaking untrue, but I want you to understand the nature of God’s laughter. It is not malicious. It is not mockery. God is not snickering into their sleeve, watching you strut down the street thinking that you’re on your way to the circus when actually you’re about to fall into a hole. And indeed sometimes you HAVE fallen into a hole when you thought you were on your way to the circus — and yes, the universe knew that was coming when you did not. Was that a dirty trick? Or was it a better story?

Sweetheart, who loves good stories more than you do? Well, God does, I suppose. And how boring would the story of your life be if you always knew its ending? How tedious an existence, to wake up every morning, plan the beginning, middle, and end of every single encounter, and always get what you had expected, laid out? Short-term plans, long-terms plans — each one ferociously successful, each item ticked off the list without ever a variation.

Think, child — would you really want to live in such a world?

Your fear says, “Yes, please, I would like that very much, thank you — where can I sign up for the planet where I get to make all the plans and everything goes my way?”

But your curiosity and your soul know better.

We want more for you than that, and so do you. And so, surprises must exist. Good ones, bad ones. Bad ones that turn out later to have been good ones. Good ones that turn out later to have been bad ones.

My love, remember years ago when you said to that woman, “One of my favorite feelings in the world is to find out that I was totally wrong about somebody. It’s so exciting and humbling.” And that woman you were speaking to said, “I am an excellent judge of character and I have never once been wrong about anyone.”

How did it make you feel, when you heard her say that? Strangely imprisoned, right? Suppressed and trapped? Isn’t that how you always felt around that person? Because they had beaten all the risk and spontaneity and openness out of their life, to make sure they would never be surprised. And you found it both boring and frightening to be in their presence. Their house was perfect, and you couldn’t run away from it fast enough. Their marriage was perfect, and something about it made you want to cry. Their career was perfect, but it felt like an immaculately executed military operation, and you wanted no part of it. 

My love — run, always run, from such certainty, from such absolutes, from such effective planning.

This, of course, does not mean that you shouldn’t make plans. You love making plans! But keep having the courage to make plans and then watch as they sometimes break apart. I know it’s tiring sometimes to fall into holes on the way to the circus, but I would rather you were sitting at the bottom of a pit with a broken ankle every once in a while than living in a world with no more surprises.

Now, back to God’s laughter . . . why does God laugh when they hear your plans? Because you are so dear to behold, so earnest and adorable and sincere. And because God knows something you don’t always know: no matter how much you may claim to want a thing, deep in your heart of hearts, there is something you will always want more, no matter the cost. You, my love, will always, always want the better story. And the better story is always coming.

Stay in the game, little starling. I know it’s hard sometimes. But it’s interesting as hell, and that’s what you came for.

Let’s keep going.

Love,

Love

Prompt

The simplest way to begin a practice of writing yourself a letter from love is to open up a notebook and write this question: “Dear Love, what would you have me know today?” — and then write down what Unconditional Love WOULD have you know today, if it could speak to you from the heart. But if you would like to go deeper, we always offer a weekly prompt, and this week the question is: Dear Love, what would you have me know today about making plans?

I am about to embark on a month in Europe, where I hope to meet some more of you — and I am absolutely thrilled that there are plans in the chat for some of you to meet one another as well! It’s all happening!

The London event on April 9th (excuse me, 9 April!) is sold out, but there are tickets still available for the London weekend workshop a few days later, and for Southampton, Stockholm, Cologne, Berlin (and a few left for Manchester and Copenhagen, two cities I’m excited to visit for the first time!)

All dates, information, and links to tickets are here: Liz’s Europe tour ❤️