The best laid plans of mice and men (and women)
According to legend (or the vastness of the internet), Scottish poet Robert Burns accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest while he was plowing a field back in 1785. Overcome with grief and guilt over what he had done, Burns stood in the field and wrote a compassionate, apologetic poem about the incident. Apparently, he didn’t feel bad enough to render basic first aid or rebuild the nest.
In the second to last stanza, Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew.” What Burns was saying in his angelic 18th-century Scottish dialect was that no matter how hard you plan, something may still go awry. For the mouse, it meant all that hard work building a nest would now need to be redone as it was destroyed by the large, bipedal poet farmer. For Burns, his plowing chores were disrupted and placed on hold as he crafted an apology letter upon the nightmarish realization of what had happened. To be honest, I think this whole thing worked out better for Burns than it did for the mouse.
Still today, the essence of that one line holds true. We can plan our projects, tasks and efforts for the day, week, month or year. Those plans could be high-level or remarkably detailed. No matter how well they’re thought out or constructed, they may be interrupted, diverted or otherwise changed by an unforeseen event, circumstance or piece of information. The real trick, I think, is to adapt, pivot and persevere though those unexpected times and get back on plan as quickly as possible. Plans change. Decisions don’t. Get back to building that winter shelter and add “poet farmers with limited depth perception” to your list of things that might throw you off track. Recognize the distractions. Deal with them. Learn from them. Then get back on plan.
NOTE: The mouse lived through the horrifying and appalling demolition of his/her nest home. Also, in 1937, John Steinbeck lifted this line for the title of his novel “Of Mice and Men”. Sidney Sheldon did the same thing for the 1997 novel “The Best Laid Plans.” Apparently, it was an impressive apology letter.
