Uncertain Steps

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day in San Francisco.  Been planning it for months.  Week long family vacation.  For many, San Francisco’s weather in the 50’s isn’t exactly balmy, tropical weather to look forward to.  If you live in the Midwest however its a pretty welcome relief from the freezing temperatures that seem to last half the year.

We’ve been to San Francisco before but didn’t plan ahead quite as well so were unable to take in some things last minute because of tickets being unavailable, etc.

This year would be different.

Began planning in October.  Airline tickets for everyone.  Seats all together on the plane.  Tickets to everything we wanted to see … Alcatraz, Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding, a performance of Wicked, and Cirque de Soleil.

Since October we’ve been expecting Christmas Day to look something like this …..

Instead its looking like this …

Not only will we not make it to California on schedule, likely miss some of our schedule activities, but I’m 200 miles from home and will more than likely not even see my kids on Christmas Day!

Should I be surprised?  Middle of the winter in the Midwest.  A snowstorm isn’t exactly a rare occurrence.

As the plans change by the minute it reminds me of the earlier post I wrote about expecting teens to make plans for the next 20 years.  The likelihood of something changing those plans is about as likely as a snowstorm screwing up a Christmas vacation from the Midwest.

Instead of worrying so much about helping our kids make ONE big decision about what they are going to do with their life, we should be spending more time teaching them how to effectively manage change.  To deal with all the crap life throws in the way of plans.  Be able to change plans as needed.  Not to every obstacle that is thrown in the way…those can be surmounted.

Rather change as a result of changes that happen to you and changes that happen within you.  Life isn’t a straight path from high school graduation to retirement.  It turns.  It twists.  There are bumps.  At times you get stuck in snowstorms and need to work through them.  At times you take the wrong road entirely and have to find a new way.

Those are the things we should be emphasizing to our kids.