PACIFIC NORTHWEST – Even the Best-Laid Plans

So for the past few months I’ve been trying to decide what all I want to do on this 3-week adventure – and who I want to visit. I have an old college roommate that lives in Boise, and we haven’t seen each other in years. And since I was driving to through Boise on my way to Seattle, taking the time to stop in and visit her sounded like a blast. We emailed and texted – and finally got things all arranged.

   I got up early and plowed right into the mound of work that I needed to finish up. Work has been crazy-busy lately, and I really needed to get caught up so that someone could cover for my week off. I worked until midnight the night before, and started working again at 5am – with the plan to wrap things up at noon. I wanted to get to Boise early enough to have a nice visit with my roommate, and hopefully even early enough to have dinner with her and her family. But my noon, I was nowhere close to being able to wrap things up. Even after a 12-hour workday I was still digging my way out of a big messy backlog – and I still had to pack luggage and my car. I called my roomie and begged-off – promising to stop by on my way home in a few weeks. Then, finally about 7pm I was beginning to see the light at the end of my Inbox. Fortunately I had been planning this trip out in my head for weeks, so I knew what to grab and throw in a suitcase. Within about an hour I was packed and ready to hit the road. Starting at 8pm meant a long drive all-night-long, but at least I was finally on my way.

   It doesn’t seem to matter what plans are made – life often seems to get in the way and requires us to adapt. I used to really struggle when my “perfectly” laid-out plans were derailed – it would ruin everything for me. But in the past few years I have definitely had things that didn’t go according to plan (like my Whole Life), and I have had to learn to be flexible and figure out a different way. And I’m much happier because of it.  I still prefer to plan than to always shoot-from-the-hip, but I’ve also finally learned to roll-with-the-punches. And after all, life is just too short to be anything but happy.