One takes the most momentous steps unaware. – Dick Francis, In The Frame
Dick Francis (1920-2010) was a British mystery writer whose novels centered around horse racing, something Francis, a former steeplechase jockey, was very familiar with. Unlike most mystery writers, Francis’s books featured a variety of detectives, although his protagonists weren’t professional detectives, they had other lives and found themselves needing to solve crimes out of circumstance. As we recall, today’s Thought came right before one of his amateur detectives walked into a room and got the snot beat out of him.
We can only plan our lives so much and there comes a time when we must, figuratively, leap in the dark to find out what nature and circumstance have in store for us. It helps to have a plan, but it also helps to have a Plan B, and maybe even plans C-F inclusive, in case, when, the others don’t work out. There are an awful lot of people in this world, all of us leading random lives, and we never know when the momentous might happen.
For example, I met my wife completely by accident, literally. We met at work, but work then was a Las Vegas hotel with many employees and our paths did not normally cross and we met because someone dropped a table on her leg. While in Las Vegas I had an accomplished high school officiating career, in large part because the assigner of umpires for high school baseball games happened to like me, and my hard work was rewarded with more than my share of big games, games I was always – and always means every single time – very good in. I had moved to Las Vegas because I really had no place else to go after umpire school and, literally, started in on everything from scratch. Moving someplace might not have had such good results.
When something momentous does happen unexpectedly, we must be ready for whatever circumstances it offers and be prepared to take advantage of it. If we are on our paths and living the lives we were meant to live, the unexpected is handled as a matter of course. However, if the unexpected catches us on our heels, we might be unprepared to withdraw the benefits something unexpected might provide.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
