Have the Life That Is Waiting for Us.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

E. M. Forster

On first read, this quote makes me think I need to accept whatever circumstance I’m in with a kind of fatalist view. Just give up. I think Forster is referring to expectation and managing that, or, at least, that’s my takeaway. When I was a kid on Christmas, I’d get so excited with expectation looking at the presents in front of me, hoping for this and that inside the boxes, that sometimes I’d set myself up for disappointment because my expectation wasn’t reality. As an adult, I know I should just be happy I have presents in front of me, and that every one of them is a gift to be excited about. Is my life perfect? Did I imagine I’d end up where I am at this point in time compared to dreams I had of my forty-somethings when I was younger? Did I even think that far ahead back then? I can either ruminate on expectations I had and compare my current self to those, or I can choose not to do that and maybe start with just being content. The latter sounds better. Harder. But better.

About the author

E. M. Forster OM CH (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English fiction writer, essayist and librettist. Many of his novels examine class difference and hypocrisy, including A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924). The last brought him his greatest success. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 separate years.

Forster was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from 1963 until his death. His views as a humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections despite the restrictions of contemporary society. His humanist attitude is expressed in the 1938 essay What I Believe (reprinted with two other humanist essays – and an introduction and notes by Nicolas Walter – as What I Believe, and other essays by the secular humanist publishers G. W. Foote & Co. in 1999). When Forster’s cousin, Philip Whichelo, donated a portrait of Forster to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GLHA), Jim Herrick, the founder, quoted Forster’s words: “The humanist has four leading characteristics – curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.”