October 30th - Man plans and God laughs.

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

There is an old Yiddish proverb "Man plans and God laughs." No matter your belief system (god or gods, fate, karma, luck) yesterday I had the experience of plans going awry and I am sure someone was laughing.

But first - a little background. I am a proud list maker. I learned this activity from watching my parents individually and collectively make lists. My father keeps his daily list in a small pocket notebook - he checks the items off as they are accomplished. My mother keeps hers on a clipboard with notebook paper where she keeps track of several things (cards to send, birthday calls to make, grocery shopping to do, bills to pay, social activities to calendar). I keep mine in a "bullet journal."  My bright red journal has daily and weekly lists as well as my reading list, my ideas and  plans, quotes I find, reminders for projects due, expenses, sketches & room layouts (shopping), and random thoughts. 3 people, 3 different ways of accomplishing the same goal (to keep track of what we are doing and to not miss anything).

Now back to today's story/theme - I had specific projects to accomplish - all on my list. I blocked off the entire day to work on these projects uninterrupted. I had my bullet journal open and was working through the projects (oh did I mention I check off my tasks with a red pen - what a feeling of accomplishment!). I am a morning person so at 10:00 am I had checked off 5 items and was cooking!

And then - the power went out. What?! Thinking it was a fuse issue, I grabbed my handy flashlight and went to the garage to check the fusebox. No luck there. So I used my "smarter than me phone" to check for power outages and found that yes indeed the power was out, not just for me but my entire neighborhood. SPU was working on the outage and anticipated everything would be back to normal in 4 hours. What? Didn't SPU realize I scheduled things that had to get done (and I needed the electricity and internet connection).

What to do?

(1) Well now I have to take the advice I so happily gave everyone else yesterday - take a breath and let that frustration roll off your back. Thanks, I feel so much better now!

(2) Next - realize this is a first world problem (my niece is constantly telling me that). The power might be out now but I do have a regular source of power (and a home, car, food, heat, high speed internet, and peace in my land - you get the idea).

(3) Regroup - take a look at my list and see what I can accomplish without the computer and perhaps even work on any written projects by "writing" - thankfully I have pen and paper, I could work on a draft the "old fashioned way." 

(4) Take a walk - walking clears my head and also makes my FitBit happy. Today I was going to walk with a purpose. I checked the power outage map and found a nearby library that was outside that grid, packed my bag (with my notebook) and walked to library to do a bit of research and writing.

The moral of the story - it is great to plan (and everyone should). But in addition to your plan A, have a plan B and a plan C. Be willing to adapt to changed circumstances, be grateful for all that you have and realize when things go wrong (and they will) it is usually not for long, so go with the flow.

Whether today or any day, apply the lesson to life and to your Legacy family file. Work on those projects, realize when something is just not working and adapt - work on something else. Is one hard-to-find ancestor getting you down? Why not pivot and focus on someone else. Push through those times when things are not going according to plan and change things up. Oh, and take that breath - it does help!