Plan B, C and D

Twenty years ago my parents pastored a small church in Laramie, Wyoming.

Spring was a fickle season. One week a mid-spring blizzard wiggles down the mountains but when the snow melts scores of wildflowers yawn through the soil. The weather shifted so often that it was nearly impossible to guess at breakfast what the temperature would be like after lunch.

The closer we inched into late spring and early summer the less this was true, of course, but after seven or eight months of snow people do grow restless. Maybe this was why church attendance slumped when the weather grew more reliable?

Occasionally Sunday morning would come and go without anyone outside of our nuclear family showing up for church.We always waited for them. A few times one or two people did show up late and Dad would proceed with the worship music and sermon he had prepared the night before.

When no one came we did other stuff. Dad might sing favourite songs with us or the entire family may have gone to a local park. To be honest I don’t remember all of our alternate plans for those few hours, only that there was always a plan B, C and D if the original one didn’t work out.

Today’s questions are purposefully vague. Apply them to anything and everything. I’ve been asking “what if this doesn’t work out the way I think it will?” for years and have only had to fall back onto alterative plans a few times. It feels better to be prepared, though.

Have you made back-up plans? Have you ever needed to use one or more of them? What happens if those plans also don’t work out?

 

 

14 Comments

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14 Responses to Plan B, C and D

  1. Heather

    As a Capricorn, I always have a plan b,c, and d. And with life the way it is, I always end up using it. Perhaps this is why I like Spring and Fall, they are much like my life and all the change that gets tossed this way and that.

  2. As a traveler for work in an industry that erratic, there are times my plans change more often than my underwear. Sometimes my plans change 3-4 times in the span of an hour. The only thing you can do is accept it an go with the flow, unless you want to develop an ulcer. 🙂

  3. I generally only prepare Plan A with the understanding that things may or may not go according to plan. Like The Wise Fool, if Plan A doesn’t work, then I try to go with the flow.

    I learned many years ago — though I seem to have to keep relearning this same lesson — that no matter how many contingencies I plan for, reality tends to throw up one I never considered beforehand!

  4. I have backup plans for backup plans. In my world, everything is always contingent on one or more something-elses, so I sometimes like to draw little flowcharts with yes/no boxes and question marks everywhere. With all that uncertainty, it’s sometimes hard to tell which is the Plan A and which is the Plan B.

  5. Interestingly, I was reading about exactly this last night. Someone conducted a study dividing the subjects into two groups:

    Group 1: dream up, imagine achieving the success you want (weight loss, job, conquest) for two weeks.
    Group 2: dream up your success, then think of possible setbacks. Imagine solving the setback. Dream again. Think of a setback…etc.

    The results were that the chances of actually succeeding were much higher for those who along with day dreaming had come up with alternative plans in case of setbacks.

    So, there you go. It’s been scientifically proven that having alternate plans increases chances of success.

  6. Been in a lot of those family only services. 🙂 I always found it hard to preach to just my family. When no one else is there everyone sitting there knows the preacher pretty well. 🙂

  7. in our moving adventures we took we returned to Ohio from our time in South Carolina and in Wyoming … I never regret having tried other places to live and have always encouraged people to go for their dreams and go where it takes them … expand your own horizons … you could say we tried option a,b,c and d and circled around to a again a few times and now that we are in Arizona we are on plan e,f or g or more … we only have 1 life to live and i think only living option (a) is boring … 🙂

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