OUR PLAN As?

We tend to get very attached to plan As. We'll get married, move into a house near the park, work in the financial services, pivot into philanthropy and then end up in a cottage by the sea painting and looking after our grandchildren. We all have some variations of this kind of life and work with all our might to achieve this.

And then life laughs and the loved one who sponsers our education suddenly passes away, or we get fired at our workplace; or we find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are accused of a crime we are innocent of; or get a life threatening disease. There are around 78 major organs in the body and each of them can go spectacularly wrong quickly.

We are surrounded by millions of people whose aspirations are actively or passively in conflict with our own. We are acutely fragile bundles of nerves and nuerons adrift in a sharp-edged random universe. The chances of something going wrong are enormous- and they probably might.

What we therefore need, as much as education in realising some of our dreams, is robust tutorship in making up alternatives. What might we do when the first marriage blows up? When we are falsely accused? When our sponser changes their mind? When our eyesight goes? When we are unable to have the children we so desire?

We should keep our grasps on all plan As tentative and light. This is the person we're married to....for now. This is the house we're living in....at the moment. This is our reputation...at this point in time.

Nothing is guaranteed. But then, fortunately, nor are our requirements for survival as fixed as we may have believed. We have been created with a lot of resilience. We are capable of surviving more than we think we can.

So when next our carefully laid plans do not materialize, it should not be the end of the world for us. We should as quickly as we can move on with Plan B, C, D or E, not give in and at every stage, be grateful for the gift of life itself.

The only prediction we can rely on is that life will-with ceaseless ingenuity-invariably outrun all our finest predictions.

Enjoy a fabulous weekend folks!