Best Laid Plans
Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse” contains the oft quoted line* “the best laid plans of Mice and Men go oft awry.”
As a child, I imagined things would go smoothly in adulthood. As an adult, I appreciate the truth of Burns’ sentiment. It’s good to have plans, but recent events have reminded me that I am not in control and that scheduling items on a calendar is no guarantee that they’ll happen.
I spent much of January deeply immersed in rewrites and edits for The Art of Love at Blackwater Pond, struggling to meet both a February deadline and various other family, class, and social commitments. When I finally sent the manuscript back to my editor, I promptly scheduled someone to design a cover and format the book interior. I thought everything was under control.
Suffice it to say Life had other plans.
I planned, and God laughed, as the saying goes. Events beyond anyone’s control caused delays and forced a new schedule. But that’s okay, because maybe, when life doesn’t go according to our plan, we should laugh, too. Not that floods and fires and illness and death and other catastrophes are funny, but that these crises of life might remind us to laugh at our own audacity in assuming we can control anything but our response to them.
Despite our best efforts, life is never settled. Roofs are going to leak, cars and relationships are going to break down, and jobs are going to be lost. To be alive is to be challenged. Our responsibility is to live the life we have, not the one we imagine, and change with the situation, growing and adapting as we make the most of our new circumstances.
I’m grateful for the lessons I learned as a classroom teacher: to adapt, to be flexible in face of schedule changes, school closures, student absences, misplaced materials, and technology failures. As Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the face.” I remember one lesson, well-planned for a formal observation, where the overhead projector bulb blew, a fire drill occurred, and my classroom phone rang TEN times in a ninety minute period. I had to laugh. That’s life.
Recent challenges with an elderly family member have us questioning if this is a “new normal,” but since life is always changing, normal is always new.
The Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed that we cannot step into the same river twice. The water moves constantly, of course, but the river bed and banks and river life change, too. Indeed, the natural state of nature is chaos. Weeds grow, wood rots, rocks erode. Nothing stays the same.
Many of us don’t like change. It unsettles us, causing us to feel out of control. Rather than hold onto that illusion of control, I find I’m happier when I go with the flow, adapting to new circumstances and surroundings as needed. In Burns’ poem, he tells the mouse that despite the destruction of his home and preparations for the winter, he is blessed compared to man because he focuses on the present, rather than regretting the past or fearing the future.**
May we all remember to be present in the moment.
*But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, / In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promis’d joy!”
**“Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! / The present only toucheth thee: / But Och! I
backward cast my e’e, / On prospects drear! / An forward tho’ I canna see, / I guess an’ fear!”