"Every completed one turned out just precisely how it was supposed to."

InSpite of the plan, which I'd carefully crafted during the days before starting the little project, my anticipations quickly went to Hell. This was in no way a surprise. I would and should have been much more surprised if they hadn't. My decades of experience crafting clever plans convinces me that they are most often conceived to fall apart. This doesn't excuse slipshod planning, for shortchanging the process limits the insights resulting from a southbound effort. If nothing much gets invested in how it's supposed to be, no Oh, Shit experience will result, and these spark the insight essential to actually completing any effort in a satisfying way. Only actual experience can temper the confidence motivating the beginning. Only insight can spawn whatever's actually needed to get the job done. It's a rule or something.

The spite emanating from these sorts of realizations could power the electric grid. Much vituperation accompanies the implosion of even the more minor plans. Some counsel that only more scrupulous planning could "solve this problem," if only these occurrences could qualify as problems. I'm growing to accept them as inevitable features which no accessible foresight could possibly hope to avoid. I'm learning to buck up and perform a little radical acceptance, for the way things are continue to be just the way things are, foiled aspirations notwithstanding. Every plan stands as a hill of beans, certainly not worthless but also just as certainly not golden. They need some soaking and slow baking before they can stand as anyone's supper.

I'm well into day three of what I'd once envisioned as at most a two day painting project. I'd accounted for probable delays, and thought my estimation eminently reasonable. I had not appreciated just how hot a dark grey roof might become under even a mid-seventies sun. I noticed a certain scorching discomfort when I sat down on the roof, prompting me to repurpose my tool belt as a seat cushion. When I noticed the same searing sensation seeping in through by boot soles, I reached down to touch the roof with my latex-gloved hand and might have melted the damned thing to my palm had I not removed it so quickly. I slinked into the house, dissatisfied with my progress, hoping to wait until shadows overtook that exposure. Two hours in shadow left the surface still registering over a hundred degrees, InSpite of the shade. Then insight visited me.

One simply must match the rhythm of the enterprise. If the sun rules, it rules with a molten iron hand. Add to the next iteration of the plan the part about sitting in the shade. Include the delays you'd thought could not possibly affect your progress, now that you've bumped progress into next week. Perhaps you could justify employing a more exacting hand, now that time's no longer the burden you previously imagined it would be. Direct your pride to the back seat. This time, like almost always, fortune holds the winning hand. Might just as well choose to feel fortunate because this is how this fortune decided to turn out. Nothing's lost and a great deal might be gained once the inane spite disperses and the insight starts kicking in. Every completed one turned out just precisely how it was supposed to, for you.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NuthinSpecial, #PureSchmaltz