Hard work and drawing up plans are helpful, but not always. We do not build our souls as much as we find them along the way. We discover them by accident as much as by intention. There is a time to take our lives in hand, but there is also a time to take our hands off our lives, and to leave what seems apparent and trust ourselves to the hidden.
Existential prayer is one form of mystical contemplation. It is the prayer of just being. It has few words; and perhaps it has no images at all. In this prayer I just AM -- like the flower of the field or the birds of the air; and by just being I give glory to God.