It is all in the planning.

One of the earlier things I can remember from life happened before I was r even at school. As early as it was I can remember it so clearly  I can even recall the smell of the moment.

I was on my tricycle with my mother. We were not far from the butcher shop in Rosyth where I was born and brought up. I could smell the aroma of the butcher shop, it was a warm sunny day. That is something else I can remember clearly that it was sunny and strangely the person who was talking to my mother was wearing a fur coat. She asked me what I wanted to be when I was older? In an instant I responded and told her I wanted to be a statue. She smiled and asked me to explain. I did not really know what i meant other than I wanted to make some kind of impression and be remembered.

I suppose if I really wanted to make that happen I should have made some serious plans for my life. I should have been prepared for a serious time in education. The wheels fell off the lorry when I started school and had real difficulties with reading and writing. It all kind of blew up in my face and school became a nightmare I just wanted to end.

I suppose as I look back now I to some extent got the wheels back on in my twenties with some serious effort. But the planning means for sure that I will never fulfil that first dream to be a statue. But I can rejoice in having helped one or two along the way. 

So what has this to do with this mornings blog? Well I was thinking about the lady who was attending a school reunion. She met up with a school friend she had not seen since her teenager days. 

The conversation they had went something like this:-

One asked the other, "You were always so organized in school, did you manage to live a well planned life? "

"Yes," said her friend.

"My first marriage was to a millionaire; 

my second marriage was to an actor;

my third marriage was to a preacher;

 and now I'm married to an undertaker."

Her friend asked, "What do those marriages have to do with a well planned life?"

She answered:

"One for the money,

two for the show, 

three to get ready, 

And four to go." 

Well, I suppose that is planning of a sort. So glad I was not the preacher.

Another lady was almost forced into making plans. 

She was a  54 year old woman who had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.

While on the operating table she had a near death experience. Seeing God she asked "Is my time up?"

God said, "No, you have another 43 years, 2 months and 8 days to live."

Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a face-lift, liposuction, breast implants and a tummy tuck. 

She even had someone come in and change her hair colour and brighten her teeth! Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it.

After her last operation, she was released from the hospital. 

While crossing the street on her way home, she was killed by an ambulance.

Arriving in front of God, she demanded, "I thought you said I had another 43 years? Why didn't you pull me from out of the path of the ambulance?"

God replied " I didn't recognise you".

Planning planning planning.  As Robert Burns once said:  "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men  Gang aft agley."

For those who do not read the Scots it roughly translated means. All the best laid plans of men can often to go wrong.

Or back to where I started and the wheels can come off the barrow. So the very best thing to do is to just get out there and live life to the full minute by minute One day at a time.