Life is a series of plans, we all make them, what we want to do when we grow up, who we want to marry, how many children, where to roam and where to put down roots. We spend a lot of time making plans. It is easy to devise a plan that will make dreams come true and solve all problems, when it’s still in your head.
However planning is not achievement and achievement is only realised through action, as William Howells said “An acre of performance is worth a whole lot of promise”. There is great joy in planning; the incubation period is when hope is at its highest. Everything works on paper and if it hasn’t been tried no one can say it will fail.
It’s stepping out from the safety of your mind and exposing your idea to the criticism of others that takes courage. The execution of every plan worth producing is accompanied by doubt and insecurity and it is easy to despair at every set back. Edward burke wrote “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair” because nothing is more powerful than persistence.
It is human nature that those around you witnessing your struggle will encourage you to give up, perhaps they cannot share your vision, people may protest your plan but they will applaud your performance, so change your plan if you have to, choosing another way is not the same as giving up, sometimes you must bend something to prevent it breaking altogether. Some anonymous person wrote “Better a has-been than a never-was, but better a never-was than a never-tried-to-be”. As an old American proverb goes, if you don't have a plan for yourself, you will become part of someone elses.
Title quote is a Hebrew Proverb