We Plan, God Laughs
When I was a child my grandmother used to say “We plan, God laughs.” I always thought I knew the meaning of that saying but you never truly do until your world comes crashing down and you’re standing at an impasse discombobulated. Only then does the wisdom in those four words finally ring true.
If you’re an anxious thinker like myself, catastrophizing is all too common. We create scenarios in our head that more often than not never come to fruition. Planning an exit strategy for a tsunami seems reasonable even if you live in Arizona. And even if it’s not? What’s the harm in planning for the worst? At least it gives us peace of mind. Does it though? We spend most of our life planning for fires, heart attacks, nuclear war, and zombie invasions only to fall victim to the one thing you never thought of.
I’m aware of this pattern yet as I sit here writing this I’ll still plan for that which may not and probably will not ever happen.
Some advice I’ve recently heard was “whatever happens, happens, and when it does you’ll handle it. You’ve handled everything else, you’ll handle this too.”
When I first heard that it sounded aloof like it was disregarding the grave dangers of the world. My first instinct was to ask “what if I can’t handle it?” My friend's response was “so you can’t handle it.”
Again it felt dismissive but as I dwelled on the idea I began to see the wisdom in the stoic approach.
I love gardening. I look forward every spring to planting seeds and watching my plants flourish into a mini oasis in my backyard. Suffering from seasonal depression I spend all winter planning my garden for the upcoming spring and summer as a means to get me through the rough weather. This summer I tried growing some new plants that required finicky care. Along the way, I made many mistakes which resulted in setbacks and the culling of many sick plants. To say I wasn’t discouraged would be a lie, it was tough but I reminded myself it was all part of learning and to be patient with the process. After months of trial and error I felt I finally found my footing only to see the fruits I’ve produced have developed what’s known as “blossom end rot.” A disease that causes the bottom of the fruit to rot thus making it unusable. It was heartbreaking to see an otherwise happy and healthy tomato become trash so quickly. I felt anxious and sad, overwhelmed with what to do next. I caught myself spinning out of control and sat down to meditate. Using tools I’ve learned over the years from books I was able to take a stoic approach.
Here is the situation.
Option 1) try to save what I can.
Option 2) throw it out.
I chose option one and while the result was nothing like I had planned at the start of spring, I’m grateful for my ability to recover from my mistakes. As my friend mentioned earlier, I was presented with a situation and despite never preparing for the disaster, I was able to develop a plan of action and handle it as it played out. Moving forward I will use this situation as a reminder of my ingenuity (something not exclusive to me but a part of being human) and remember that regardless of how the situation plays out, we as humans thrive at making the best of the worst.
I’ll try my best to catch myself when I catastrophize and remember things can and will go wrong but that’s okay because when they do, I’ll figure it out. As the saying goes, “We plan, God laughs.”