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Surely you’ve heard plenty of admonitions to set goals and plan where you’re going in life (and yes, I know – don’t call you Shirley). In fact, I’ll bet the odds are fairly good that sometime in your life you’ve sat in on at least one planning or goal-setting seminar or workshop.

But what if there’s nothing you’d like better than to make a plan and get on with it – but alas, due to circumstances beyond your control, well Bubba, it ain’t gonna happen!

What if external events conspire to actually prevent you from planning your next move?

Sheesh! Now that’s a lotta “what ifs”!

I spent a year working in Austin, Texas on a semiconductor manufacturing facility (boy, try saying that ten times real fast!) for an engineering firm located in Greenville, South Carolina.

It was a genuinely pleasant assignment: An interesting project in a decent-sized town with lots to do and see (unfortunately, a disproportionate number of my field assignments have been located out in the middle of nowhere – oddball places like West Hallelujah , or 10 miles outside of Upper PoDunk). Plus, Austin had the added benefit of fairly nice weather year round (although a mite warm in the summer), and it wasn’t far from home (Houston, Texas).

As the project began to wind down, however, our usually well-laid travel plans started to tangle up like a phone cord (sound of desperation setting in).

About two months before the project’s end date, I really began to “push” about where the next assignment would be. My boss assured me there was plenty of work, and to be honest, I wasn’t worried about losing a job. I just wanted to start planning our relocation – a “snarly” job (lots of loose ends to tie down) any way you sliced it.

A few weeks passed by with still no word, so I increased my efforts to the next energy level and started making calls every few days. I was once again assured that “they” (who are these guys, anyway?) were working on it and would have an assignment soon.

It turned out there were several opportunities – one in Richmond, Virginia, one in another city (I can’t remember where) – and I could always come back to the office in Greenville for awhile. Hey, we were OK with all the choices; we just wanted to know, you know?

With less than a month to go, we had to start making arrangements to move – wrapping up affairs, changing housing arrangements, etc. The only problem: I still didn’t know where we were going! Can you believe it? It was pretty aggravating to tell our friends, “I don’t know which direction we’re going yet, but on (fill in date here), we’re leaving!”

Believe it or not, this continued through the next week, then two weeks, and on – and on…

Arrghh! Grrbl, grrbl. Spit! (sounds of gnashing of teeth)

Finally, it was the Last Day – and sure enough, there was still no decision (sound of buzzer). All the project files had been turned over and archived, office furniture was scheduled to be returned, and I handed over the keys to the building landlord (I was literally the last to leave – and yes, I turned off the lights).

I picked up the phone and called my boss. “I’ll tell you what,” I told him, “you get a desk ready for me in Greenville, and I’ll be there in three days.”

You know, there comes a point when you can do all you can, but sometimes you just have to let what’s gonna happen, happen. It may not be the best experience (and take if from me, this one was aggravating beyond belief!), but the truth of the matter is, you can probably survive it just fine, thank you very much.

How? Well, it can be a lot easier if you follow just a few simple guidelines:

Plan what you can – Hey, just because we couldn’t plan everything didn’t mean we couldn’t plan something! Since we had three possible destinations (actually four, if you counted throwing in the towel and going back to Houston), we developed three different contingency plans. These included (for the places we didn’t know) maps, possible hotel locations, cost of living information, travel route maps, etc. Sure, it was a lot of extra work (not to mention a royal pain in the, er, southern regions), but at least we were as ready as we could be for the choices we had at the time.

Understand that you can’t control everything – (Rule #1: You can’t control everything. Rule #2: See rule #1.) It is my personal belief that sooner or later, everyone will learn this lesson! See, there are bound to be times in your life when you simply can’t make everything happen the way you want. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say most things are beyond your (complete) control (so far, my personal score is something like Me-3%; Life-97%). But is this an unusual state of affairs? Absolutely not (and welcome to reality – also known as The Middle Zone)! So what do you do? Try these four little words: Get used to it!

Keep your sense of humor (or if you don’t have one, get one!) – And trust me; this one bit will do more for your well-being than all other advice combined. By far and away the best advice I can offer anyone, anytime, anywhere: lighten up! The best defense for the inevitable pitfalls, conundrums, and outright roadblocks life tosses your way is to learn to relax, find something to laugh about, and just move on. C’mon, admit it; sooner or later you’re probably going to look back on the situation and laugh anyway – so why not now? It’ll be much easier to handle, AND, has the added benefit of impressing your friends with what a great, well-balanced individual you are!

Now who wouldn’t want that?

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So what about it folks? What’s been your most aggravating experience with this sort of thing? Can you add anything to the above list?

(Photo: More Winter by nico 0512)

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