User blog:Taldin/The Best Laid Plans Are Just Plans

Work's been going through a bit of a tumultuous winter, since our company was sold to a bigger company in Europe. We've been told to 'keep busy', 'get the job done', 'don't screw up', since we have new overlords, as the saying goes.

So when we had a sudden All Hands meeting called, the day after there was a rumor about our division being sold to a competitor because it didn't align with our parent company's vision of the future, we feared the worst.

What we didn't expect was a different announcement; the passing of our Chief Architect. Someone who pretty much built our codebase from the ground up, and owns a lot of the patents in the company.

"He was so young -- he didn't seem like there was anything wrong." my manager said. "Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it..."

Definitely, that.

Sometimes we need that reminder that putting things off until next week, next month, next year, 'a couple of years down the line', 'when we have more time....'  is running the risk that it never happens. You can't do everything today, but you can plan for things that you might do - but anything you 'might' do are things that you 'might not get to do.'  I know I've had my share of plans not come to fruition; I'm still mourning the loss of a future that I'd had planned for the better part of a decade, because my intended partner changed plans out from under me.

I  haven't made a new plan yet, because planning in this case requires more input than me - and so I've been reluctant to drive a course that affects someone else who is locked into a different path for the time being.

But I should make my own plans - it's just harder to make ones that don't include others when the previous one did.

I'm not afraid to go it alone, really - it just doesn't mean as much to me as it did when there was an 'us' - a person to do it for, you know?

But to sit and do nothing wastes time, destroys opportunities, and rolls the dice one more time of something happening to ME and then none of the things I wanted to do will actually happen.

"Death is Nature's Way of Telling You to Slow Down," the saying goes. But in some ways, it's also the way to tell the survivors,  "Do Something Different." Or perhaps, "Do Something Sooner."

Lesson of the day, indeed.