(the secret to a stress free life)
So what are you doing tomorrow anyway?
Be it learning, work, chesed, taking care of the family or any combination thereof, if you are evenly moderately organized you most probably have your day worked out in advance, as you do every other day.
And then come the speed bumps: flat tires, your child comes home sick from school, emergency trips to the doctor and dentist for stitches and toothaches, a crisis at the office which keeps you there till all hours, your chavrusa doesn’t show up, your car doesn’t start, it snowed 23 inches, and a myriad of other unanticipated horrors guaranteed to trash your plans.
We have all done this dance at one time or another, and all too often as far as most of us are concerned. The frustration and angst and sometimes anger that we all feel as we helplessly watch our plans vaporized can be directly attributed to whatever it was that turned our day upside down.
The reason for all of this emotional turmoil is simplicity itself. However sensitive we may be hashkafically to the fact that Hashem determines our parnossa, rather than the strength and power of our hands, when it comes to daily activities, our inherent egocentricity brings us to the view that whatever we have in mind to do on any given day is Plan A, which inevitably leads to the aforementioned frustration, angst, and sometimes anger when the de rigueur vicissitudes of life put in, what we perceive to be, an untimely and terminally inconvenient appearance.
Our self-absorption notwithstanding, the truth is that this is a theocentric world, which requires us to understand that what we propose to do is actually Plan B. All that other stuff: the flats, the medical emergencies etc. is in reality Plan A, because it obviously reflects the Yad Hashem which is manifesting itself in our lives.
It’s all a matter of focus.
It’s all about looking at life’s curve balls as the real Plan A rather the ruination of what we thought was Plan A.
Plan A is always the best plan for a person because everything Hashem does is for the best and moreover, Hashem wants what is good for you more than you want what’s good for you. And that’s reflected in the fact that we consistently come up with Plan B.
Every morning we should ask Hashem what He has in store for us that day. To the extent that He has a DO LIST for us He’ll let us know. That’s Plan A for the whole or part of the day, and we should never forget it. If there is no Plan A to answer PRESENT at our daily roll call or there was and we have dealt with it, then we’ll finally turn our attention to Plan B.
And if we get don’t get to finish it, then what of it? It wasn’t our priority anyway, as it turns out.
