“Why do you have everything so structured?! Sometimes I feel trapped. I prefer life unstructured!” – my wife when she was moody

During my 20s, my cousin called our trips without a prior plan, “dynamic planning”. While there was plenty of spontaneity in those trips, there were times we did not get the hotel rooms we wanted because we did not have a reservation.

That was a spark to be adaptable not only in trips, but in life. As I got better in reaching personal goals and more impactful results in my late 20s into my early 30s, the ideal approach is to have a plan, while having room for spontaneity. Sounds simple, right? 😊

For the past six months, my wife and I planned for a trip to Yosemite National Park. When my wife moved to be with me and my awesomeness last summer after we got married, we drove for two weeks from Illinois to California, stopping by as many national parks along the way. We bought an annual pass that allowed us to visit any national park for one year.

This would be the last park we’d visit before the pass expired.

A month before our trip, we made a list of all the places we thought would be nice to visit. A week before our trip, I finalized the places we can visit for each day. We left one of the days in our trip to be unstructured, leaving it open to new experiences or to make up any places we may have missed.

On the first day of our trip, my wife found a pamphlet at the hotel lobby advertising whitewater rafting. Seeing this as an opportunity to try a new experience, we booked whitewater rafting as an activity on our final day.

On the second day of our trip, we arrived at the park at noon. We visited Bridalveil Falls, a wide waterfall that left us wet after a few minutes from taking pictures. We then had lunch at a quiet area of the park, and hiked up halfway to Vernal Falls. We met someone who worked at the same company as me during our hike and shared a pleasant conversation on what line of businesses we are a part of. My wife had difficulty walking on the Mist Falls Trail leading to Vernal Falls that we hiked halfway up the trail that afternoon.

For the third day of our visit, we did not have a pass to drive into the park during the daytime. Some parks require a separate pass to drive into the park to control the number of visitors entering the park. The buses that would take us into the park from our hotel had no available seats on the trip back. Feeling frustrated for not getting the passes sooner before it was sold out, my wife said, “Why don’t we just go to the park before 5am in the morning when they start checking for the passes? I’ll drive.”

Awww snap. My wife is driving my car. 😨 Just kidding. She drove well on the mountain roads.

We slept for three hours that evening and drove into the park at 4am in the morning. We slept for two hours in the car before eating breakfast and starting our day. After visiting the Lower Yosemite Falls and hiking to Mirror Lake that morning, my wife asked if I wanted to hike to the top of Vernal Falls. She probably felt bad that we didn’t complete the hike the day before and wanted us to finish what we started.

We hiked to the top of Vernal Falls, joking at the foreign tourists lacking etiquette taking pictures once we got there. We hiked for 7 hours that day, getting blisters on our feet and having soreness on our legs. We slept early that evening, satisfied for visiting the places we originally had planned.

On the fourth day of our trip, we woke up late in the morning and took our time getting ready before our whitewater rafting experience.

We were given gear to wear and use during the rafting, and safety lessons on what to do in a crisis. We took a bus ride to the rafting starting point and were given additional safety lessons. It was time to raft on the river.

One of our fellow rafting mates fell off the raft after we hit a big wave (which happens to be the cover photo of this post). Our guide told us to keep paddling to overcome the waves in front of us, though it was hard for all of us to synchronize when one of our teammates just fell. A few minutes later, he was rescued by the raft in front of us.

We synchronized our paddling better as a team that no one else accidentally fell off the raft after that.

We were told that we can swim on the river since the waters were now calm towards the end of the rafting experience. I swam twice for about 20 seconds each time because I sank below the river each time I jumped and was shocked from the coldness of the water.

We were given soft drinks as a reward for our experience. Our blisters and soreness mostly went away with the river’s cold water reducing our inflammation.

The rafting experience was a microcosm of our weekend and a metaphor of married life so far. The river flows change depending on how much rain and snow came from the mountains, and how the rocks and plants are placed on the river. Our safety guides provide a path where the rafts can safely go during the experience. We will get splashed and soaked from the waves. How we overcome the waves depend on our strength and trust as a team to paddle when told to by our guides.

We all have plans in life until the plan does not go according to plan. While it is important to have a plan of goals to work towards and an idea on how to get there, it is just as important to adapt dynamically and learn along the way. Whether it was falling astray from my passion to write, stressing out on our job evaluations, navigating through the transition into married life, or having setbacks in starting a family the past year, if one of us falls astray or gets discouraged along the way, it is our duty to be there for each other, giving encouragement and support that we got this and God is with us and for us.

Being there for each other. Staying up a couple more minutes at night before going to sleep to talk about our worries. Asking each other how our days are, listening to each other and letting each other finish their TED talks. Or doing mundane things around the house, such as folding laundry or vacuuming the floors, without being told to so because we want to make our partner’s life easier.

We pray for each other everyday, thanking God for even having the opportunity to be together and create memories together. Then we rinse and repeat with the flow of life’s river.