Plan B

A dear friend gave me a really cute memo pad recently. The cover says, “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” I love it.

Hmmm…Plan B. The second choice. The fall-back plan. The “just-in-case” plan. The plan many high school seniors make just to keep their parents happy as they pursue Plan A.

I haven’t met too many people whose life ended up with their Plan A completely intact. Plan A is always made when we have very little experience, a lot of wants, and even more assumptions.

Why must Plan A be our only acceptable option in order to feel complete and successful? I do completely understand the mentality of not wanting a “fall back” plan; we don’t want to be tempted to fall back. That was me when I was a teenager. However, I now know that our original Plan A is not going to be the only definition of our lives. Even when it seems that every part of our plan is coming together, there will always be some surprises eventually. It would be naïve to believe that everything will go our way if we just work hard enough.

So, how do we handle Plan B? Do we just become bitter and resentful? It’s so easy for that to happen, and the people who fall into that can remain that way for a very long time. It pretty much takes away their awareness of a viable or possibly better plan, and the rest of their lives will be spent blaming someone else that their Plan A didn’t work out. I think, way down deep (and I duck as I say this), we may want someone else to be accountable for “ruining our lives.” Even if our Plan A is off the table as a result of personal illness or injury, we blame ourselves, or even God, for our being stuck or disappointed.

Good news! Flourishing after the demise of Plan A is never impossible when recognizing that Plan B is not a substitute to shut our eyes to what we started with. Actually, it opens our eyes to see the many options and exciting choices that we didn’t realize you had. Refusing to see or consider other plans makes us pretty blind and unproductive…and uncreative.

I’ve always believed in being focused, passionate, and totally invested in doing what we love. If we truly are creative, then we should admit that we love many things. We can apply that focused energy that we had for the original Plan A towards the new Plan A.

There is a Bible scripture that says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” – Ecclesiastes 9:10. Most of us have wish lists, even bucket lists, of fun and exciting things we want to do.  Sometimes we can make them happen, sometimes we can’t, and we think about them with a wistful smile. We also have dreams and goals of what we ultimately want to do with our lives. Those are much more significant and impactful, so anything different (not “less than”) can easily be considered a failure. But that little memo book I mentioned at the beginning of this with the quote about Plan B also says, “How you handle Plan B reveals your character.” That sounds harsh, and it is very definitive. Disappointment, regret, and bitterness do make people very harsh and critical. When I was a student, some of the meanest and most critical teachers were the ones whose careers didn’t go the way they wanted, and they took their frustration and bitterness out on their students. The very best teachers are the ones who discovered that they have a love and talent for both performing and teaching. They would never have known if they hadn’t been put in a position to have to widen their nets. Modeling out how to switch to or incorporate a Plan B is one of the most important and very best things to teach, because most of the students really will have to develop a Plan B. We are defined by what we do with what we have. That’s the real Plan A. We all should learn that  Plan B can fulfill everything we didn’t realize we wanted all along!Dance on