Writing My Plans in Pencil
After a long rainy winter in beautiful Oregon last year, I set my eyes on a vacation with my childhood friend in the hot sun of Palm Springs, CA.
All I wanted was to lay by a pool, have good conversation, read a book without interruption, throw my laundry on the floor and sleep. A working mommy needs breaks here and there, and this vacation was long over due! What made the trip even better, was our flights were free and our hotel was a steal-of-a-deal. Two giddy moms, lattes in hand, without husbands or kids, hopped on a flight to a sweet oasis. Things were good.
An hour into our flight, the plane was struck by lightning. We were all okay, but in shock that our plane was hit. Really? The flight was immediately cancelled, and we were left with the option of road-tripping 10 hours to Palm Springs. My friend sweetly reminded me how thankful we should be that we were not traveling with our children in the midst of such a fiasco. Though it had started off rough, we figured the rest of the trip was bound to be a blast!
We finally arrived at our hotel, with only one day lost, but the next day we woke up to cold record winds and overcast skies. Hmmm….not exactly what I was dreaming of. We decided to turn our dreary day into shopping therapy and headed for the outlets. Unbelievably, our rental car broke down a mile from our hotel! We decided to stay in and watch movies while we waited for a new rental car. Our second day was now done and gone. This was not shaping up to be the vacation I had dreamed of, but as my girlfriend and I woke up the next morning to warm sunshine and a day full of poolside rest, I realized that our friendship was really what this trip was about. We both agreed that it’s best to write our expectations and plans in pencil. God doesn’t deal so well with our permanent marker plans.
In the season of setting goals, remember to leave room for unexpected turns, mistakes and disappointments. Lief Hansen is the CEO of Spark Interactions, an organization that brings play into the workplace. Hansen flips the idea of failure on its back, helping organizational teams fail as much as possible in the process of creating. Hansen’s logic is based on the idea that when failure is embraced into the creative process, people realize that it isn’t that big of a deal. Maybe there is no such thing as failure? Productivity is really not the end-game when you are living wholeheartedly.
By the end of 2013, I hope the quality of our relationships far outweighs the ability to check off a list of achieved goals. As we know, lightning might force an emergency landing and you may be road-tripping 10 hours. Plans change, unexpected turns occur, but in the end, it’s the people that matter most. May 2013 be a year of dreaming, living, and cherishing those you are journeying alongside.
