Contingency plan?

Sometimes a picture literally speaks a thousand words and can even serve as a metaphor for what’s going on in your life.  Recently, on our annual family camping trip in glorious northern Maine, the tides and skies shifted in a big and not so welcomed way.Hold on a minute please…wrong table.  I ordered the epic, sun-filled, heat-wave-week on the water, with a side of sunscreen, please.They say you can learn a lot about a person’s temperament while traveling – particularly when dealing with hiccups; lost luggage, cancelled flights, car-sick kids, long delays and flat tires.  I would counter that we could use waking up in a tent to torrential rain, as another litmus test.  Do you freak out or go with the flow?  What’s the contingency plan?I’ll admit it was quite Zen and soothing to wake up to a symphony of rain hitting the tent shell.  Opening my eyes wider, I did a quick survey of the interior – inspecting for any leakage.  All good here.  Visions of hot coffee and my book, or a couple of board games with the kids twirled in my head.  Kind of nice at first and then the reality struck: Everything was damp, the forecast was grim and it would be days before it ended.  The novelty began to wane…and quickly.Just the night before, the term “contingency plan” came up in conversation over dinner with the kids.  None of them actually had a clue about what it meant.  And though I knew what it meant by definition, did I really have one?  What’s that phrase again that I love?  “We make plans and God laughs.”  This time it was me and Mother Nature and I wasn’t too keen on going up against her.Do we ever really have a back-up plan or is it more important to have the tools to accept what is unfolding around us?  I’ll admit that I’m more of the Type A, control oriented, I-like-a-plan kind of gal.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that it has served me well.  However, what has served me well, is the act of acceptance.  Like it or not, the sooner we pause, take a deep breath and observe – the sooner resistance releases its grasp upon us.We all convened in our “kitchen tent” that morning for breakfast – hot tea was in order to soothe our dampened spirits.  Our initial consensus was to settle into the day.  With any luck there would be a break in the rain and we could go for a transformative hike.  I’ll admit that thoughts of packing up, followed by hot showers, my cozy dry bed back home, danced in my head - but I was “going with the flow.”We have been spoiled the last few years – as the only rain that fell during those vacations occurred at night as we slept.  This year’s shift in the weather pattern certainly altered the trajectory of our holiday – there really was no contingency plan.  And if you have ever packed up a campsite in the rain, you know it’s no picnic.Should we always have a plan tucked in our back pocket, or would we be better served by a willingness to surrender and adapt?  Should I stay or should I go? (as the Clash’s 1980’s hit song breaks out in my head).  There is no right or wrong answer here.  Either certainly has its merits.  The freedom lies in the ability to stay flexible – to not dig our heels into one position.Is there an area in your life where you resist and lock on?  Do you leave room for charting a new course?  It’s great if you have a plan, as long as you still reserve some space for the possibility that a new one may emerge.  Maybe the plan should be to simply let the plan evolve.  It’ll all be ok.Full disclosure - within an hour of our “summit meeting,“ the deluge of rain and a boom of loud thunder had us all scurrying to pack up our soggy gear to head home lickety-split.  No more digging our heels into muddy ground.  And while we did spend the next day slightly pouty about a vacation cut short, with a lot of wet gear to clean, home greeted us with warm, dry sunshine and a few days of “stay-cation.”  We didn’t let anyone know we had returned, and indulged ourselves in late night movies…flexible contingency plan and dry socks in place.