The past week has been a whirlwind. In preparation for a vacation I was supposed to be on right now (more on that in a minute), I hustled and worked my tail off over the past several days to make sure that, for the first time since running my own business, I could put up an out-of-office replay on my email without stressing about what I might miss.
And I did get that out-of-office message up last night. At almost midnight I had crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s – had everything in good shape, boarding passes printed, bags packed, even an outfit picked out for this morning. The prep and the planning was immaculate.
Ready to head off to Seattle, I arrived at the airport only to find that my flight had been cancelled. And now, here I am, waiting to get out of town (hopefully) later tonight. That out-of-office reply didn’t stay up for long.
It’s frustrating. Damn frustrating. It’s not how I had envisioned kick-starting my much-needed vacation. But, shit happens.
It’s things like this that remind you that no matter how much you plan, no matter how prepared you may be, things are going to happen – obstacles will get in your way, you’re patience will be tested, and the rude guy at the check-in desk (metaphorically speaking) isn’t going to be any help.
The lesson? You’re plan isn’t always going to pan out the way you, well, planned. Even more than planning is being prepared to deal with change, especially change outside of your control.
When it comes to the debate of fate vs. free-will, I don’t have an answer for what you should believe – but I do know that the one constant you’ll always have is the power of choice. You choose how you’ll respond – if you’ll sulk and complain after being faced with an inconvenience, or if you’ll see the change as an opportunity to take on something else (for me, writing this blog post as therapy so I don’t continue tweeting to American Airlines about how much they suck).
No one ever said you shouldn’t have a plan – but don’t stress (too much) when something doesn’t quite go your way. Shit happens. Life goes on. There’s always the next flight. Or maybe the one after that…