Best Laid Plans

Many years ago the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, wrote a poem including the line, "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, "

We've changed that a bit in modern English to refer to the best made plans instead of calling them schemes.

That line, which was originally about a mouse having its home and food destroyed in the middle of winter, is still referred to in our time. While it's rare for humans to have their homes destroyed by earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, those terrible things do sometimes happen.

And there are lots of other ways our best made plans can fail.

I hope no one reading this post has had to deal with a major loss. But all of us have times when things get in the way of our plans.

It's September and the first day of Fall is just over two weeks away. Thinking back to our New Year Resolutions in January, I wonder how many of us have actually achieved what we had planned and hoped to accomplish by this time.

I certainly haven't, but I have accomplished quite a few other things I hadn't even thought of back then.

Sometimes when things go "agley" it can be for the best in the long run.