Having a Plan B

In this blog I plan to ruminate around one of our main social failings.  My title is, "Having a Plan B."  What should go without saying is, "Make a life Plan, Plan A."  Our main National, and personal failing is not even having a Plan A, let alone a Plan B!  As a Nation, look at where that has gotten us!

I remember, many years ago now, when another major country--Russia, China?--announced to the world a new 5- or 10-year plan for their country.  This announcement was greeted with scorn and derision by our Country's, so-called, "Leaders."  Mores the pity!  (I remember thinking at the time that their reaction was bizarre!) 

When I was younger, which applies as well as our current younger generation, how much better off we would all be today, if our elders held as a motto to pass on to the next generation, "Make a Plan and work your Plan!"  (Our class motto, when I graduated from High School was, "Hitch your wagon to a Star!")

Of course, when I was that age, instead of plans, there were only assumptions as to one's future, for females it was, "Get married and have children."  For males it was, "Get a job so you can support a family."  Later, in the 60s, and in later decades, there wasn't much of what now could pass for Plans, A or B, either.  Instead, what amounts to Dreams took over: "get rich"; "become a movie star"; "start a band"; "become a rock star"; etc.  As for current, 21st Century Plans, they seem to be, "Duh, get high, I guess!"  And, as for a Plan B, "If stuff doesn't work out, move back in with my Mom, Dad, (or both).

Growing older, about the time large corporations began exporting all real jobs out of the Country, my advice, should anyone have asked, would have been: "First, become a nurse or an auto mechanic", useful life skills which can't be exported!  The, "become," part is important, because it requires gaining a certain amount of useful knowledge/training/education. The closest our current younger generation comes to that goal, is to gain computer knowledge. 

If anything like advice, on the part of parents and other elders, during the last half of the 20th Century, regarding making a Plan, would have been, "Get an education!"  (Said as though all educations are equal, of course.)

How much better, if their elders, starting with the teen years, had stated: "Figure out a Plan for your future, and how you are going to work your Plan!"  The Plan, of course, must include a Plan B, since, "The best-laid plans of mice and men, go oft awry." (Robert Burns)

Now, what many of those who, "got an education," have for their trouble are enormous College Loans to pay back.

I wish I could say that I was wise enough to have a Plan A, plus Plan B, but I wasn't.  Since I didn't follow the expectations of the time--that is, get married--I have muddled through life.  I have not wasted my time, but how much better, early on, if I had set down a Plan, and worked it.  Instead, I have left my life to fate, making the best of whatever situation I found myself in, like others of my generation, and as have millions who have followed me.

With those thoughts, I end this blog.

Shirley Gallup