Amanda Lamb: No plans
I wish I had some great wisdom to impart as we enter this new year after a very challenging 2020. In many ways, while there is hope on the horizon due to the vaccines, we are still in the very same place we've been for months--unable to make plans.
Posted — UpdatedI wish I had some great wisdom to impart as we enter this new year after a very challenging 2020. In many ways, while there is hope on the horizon due to the vaccines, we are still in the very same place we’ve been for months—unable to make plans. And, as a world-class planner myself, this causes me a great deal of cognitive dissonance, something I am slowly working through.
For now, my college student plans to go back to school at the end of January and my high school student will continue her studies in a hybrid model—part of the week online and part of the week in person. I know at any given moment these scenarios can change. But as we talk about the future—them getting summer internships or jobs—everything still seems very up in the air. I told them to look for opportunities, but understand they may be limited depending on what the world looks like in six months.
If you’re like me, you probably thought at the beginning of this odyssey that we would be in this limbo for a few months at the most, but then the limbo stretched into half a year, three quarters of a year, and now we are coming up on one year.
I keep getting notices for all the half-marathons that I had signed up for in 2020 that were canceled. They say things like: “We’re hoping to hold it in the spring, stay tuned.” Delete. Frankly, when anyone plans anything in the first half of 2021, I just roll my eyes and think, "Well, isn’t she hopeful?"
My answer is simple—don’t plan. If you don’t plan anything, you can’t be disappointed. Then, if and when things do turn around, everything that you do will feel like a gift. So, if I have any minute inkling of wisdom, that’s it. Take everything one day at a time. Engage in the moment, and while we all hope better days are around the corner, enjoy the one that is right in front of you.
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