Prepare for the unexpected.

Today I am leaving promptly to drive my friends to the railway station hoping to catch a train to take them to visit their family. This journey has been on their minds for some time and they have tried to make preparations in checking train schedules and platforms and everything possible to make sure things go smoothly. But life does not always go to plan and it is almost impossible to make certain that all possible bases have been covered.  Thousands of people have discovered in the last few days how travel can be interrupted by somebody flying a drone around an airfield.

But we live in an instant society and so people find it very difficult when things do not go to plan. We want instant everything or to put it another way we want things and we want them now. 

Several centuries ago, a Japanese emperor commissioned an artist to paint a bird. A number of months passed, then several years, and still, no painting was brought to the palace. 

Finally, the emperor became so exasperated that he went to the artist's home to demand an explanation. Instead of making excuses, the artist placed a blank canvas on the easel. In less than an hour, he completed a painting that was to become a brilliant masterpiece. When the emperor asked the reason for the delay, the artist showed him armloads of drawings of feathers, wings, heads, and feet. Then he explained that all of this research and study had been necessary before he could complete the painting.  

A famous artist painted a house with a sycamore tree behind the building. The brother of the artist tells of watching his brother work on this painting. Speaking of it he said,  " When I first saw the painting, he wasn't finished with it. He showed me a lot of drawings of the trunk and the sycamore's gnarled roots, and I said, "Where's all that in the picture?" "It's not in the picture," he said. "For me to get what I want in the part of the tree that's showing, I've got to know thoroughly how it is anchored in the back of the house." 

He could draw the tree above the house with such authenticity because he knew exactly how the thing was in the ground. 

 There are some things in life that we can plan for and make preparations such as the painting of a tree or even an abstract but we can never fully prepare for the unexpected. We can only prepare ourselves to be ready to meet the unexpected knowing that this is the way of life and often there is little we can do but to go with the flow.

Have a great day hope I will be back on track again tomorrow and not at the side of a railway track waiting in the hope that the expected train will arrive.