...on gratitude
You plan, God laughs.
I planned, God laughed.
Every morning, like clockwork, I've developed a charming routine of publishing just after 9 AM, or prepping my newsletters mere minutes before. Today, however, unfolded a bit differently, and the reason is quite amusing. The reason for today’s delay unlike the usual is quite funny. I spent a great part of the previous night working and I had a constant reminder in my head: publish by 9am, after I finished with my task for the night I suddenly remembered. I have to turn in an application for an internship on Data Protection, so, I dedicated the rest of the night to perfecting my application.. I sent this application at exactly, 9:12am and guess what happened 5 minutes after, check the image below.
I still have many things to say to whoever responded. The response came in fast and sharp, although it sounded unprofessional at least it’s better than getting aired. Now that this is behind let’s get down to today’s piece.
Planning is important, but the most important part of every plan is to plan on the plan not going according to plan.
What’s the saying? You plan, God laughs. Planning is critical, because they let you know whether your current actions are within the realm of reasonable. But few plans of any kind survive their first encounter with the real world, just like my plan to write an application didn’t get to see the light of the day. Our plans are perfect on the drawing board.
I have written it here before and I will write it again if you ask me “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I’d honestly have no idea. I haven’t given it much thought, unless you want an AI-generated response. This is because I am used to the plan not going according to plan. If you’re projecting your income, savings rate, and returns over the next 5 years, think about all the big stuff that’s happened in the last 5 years that no one could have foreseen: August 26, FG announced the enforcement of 18-year age limits for JAMB exam, a financial crisis that is making the exchange rate between the US dollar & Nigerian naira to sit at 1,668.49 naira as I write this, It goes without saying President Bola Ahmed Tinubu became our president, and a coronavirus that shook the world four years ago.
A plan is only useful if it can survive reality. And a future filled with unknowns is everyone’s reality. A good plan doesn’t pretend this weren’t true; it embraces it and emphasizes room for error. The more you need specific elements of a plan to be true, the more fragile your life becomes. Many plans fail not because they're wrong, but because they require precision. If there’s enough room for error in your plan that you can say, “It’d be great if 8 prospective clients over the next 30 days, but if only does 4 I’ll still be OK,” the more valuable your plan becomes. Many bets fail not because they were wrong, but because they were mostly right in a situation that required things to be exactly right.
Room for error—often called margin of safety —is one of the most underappreciated forces in planning. It comes in many forms: A frugal budget, flexible thinking, and a loose timeline—anything that lets you live happily with a range of outcomes. It’s different from being conservative. Conservative is avoiding a certain level of risk. Margin of safety is raising the odds of success at a given level of risk by increasing your chances of survival. Its magic is that the higher your margin of safety, the smaller your edge needs to be to have a favorable outcome. (read that again…). Basically have a Plan A with numerous Plan Bs. That’s margin for error safety.
Even when the plan goes according to plan.
or it doesn’t one thing still remains unchanged. Never neglect the place of gratitude. Regardless of the position you are in a lot of people can give up thier life to have what you hold trivial.
Be grateful.
See you on the next one.
Your Tech-Savvy Esquire.
Copyright © [Ogunwomoju Adebayo O.] [2024].