Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Best Laid Plans


"Want to make God laugh? Make a plan." And so it goes. Sometimes plans go like clockwork, and other times like a ship in a storm.

Bush thought that we'd go in to Iraq and get rid of Saddam and the WMAs and then we'd be out of there before you could say "jack rabbit." And now he is asking for 30,000 more soldiers to reduce the chaos that he has caused.

Did he not have adequate information? Did he not listen to the experts? How did he go so wrong?

On the personal front, I planned with a friend for two years to take a walk tomorrow in Tuscany. Lo and behold, something happened and she was not able to come, and it wasn't a good time for me either.

I wonder if we should just say, "no plans, let's just be spontaneous." Events would not be publicized, but instead would (or wouldn't) spontaneously erupt. Calendars would be thrown out, or use for fodder by college artists. Restaurants would be open or closed depending on everything from the position of the stars to the whims of the cooks.

Hey, wait, that's no way to run the world. It would be utter chaos. But would it be any different that Iraq, my walk in Tuscany, or the result of any of our other best laid plans?

I've heard that you can't get lost if you don't know where you are going. Unfortunately, or fortunately, making plans is probably warranted, as long as we are accepting when they have to be tweaked and thrown aside (as they usually do). We certainly don't want God to laugh, do we?