Things Don’t Always Go as Planned, Even When They’re Already Not Going as Planned

Court proceedings: Like life, they proceed with or without your preparation.

Occasionally, things don’t go exactly the way you planned, imagined or hoped.

Actually, most of the time they don’t. Not exactly.

Sometimes, however, they go PRECISELY the opposite way.

Let’s talk about blueprints!

If you draw up a detailed map of your day, that’s cool. Just don’t expect to be able to build the whole day to scale, and do expect that at some point a hammer will go missing or something. Also, be prepared for it to rain, in which event you won’t even be able to pour the foundation.

Also, don’t forget to be prepared for it to rain hard, nonstop, for like twelve months, and take all your money and sense of assurance in one swift motion.

Now obviously (or maybe not as much “obviously” as “if you’re remotely capable of reading between the lines”), you’re detecting some bitter undertones. As you could have (and should have) guessed, these are coming from the way MY day went, which was not exactly the way I imagined. Sure, I got up, ate breakfast, had coffee, went to court, sat on a bench next to a couple of young characters talking about their drug charges and how it was bullshit that they kept getting rescheduled, went to work after the arraignment, changed my clothes, ate a sandwich… All those things happened readily and easily. Fine.

But what I imagined regarding my ruling left no room for error, and so I was a bit sliced from the ankle when it was finally made.

I have no qualms about being positive, and hoping for things to go well, but occasionally I forget to take my own advice and anticipate complete surprises. Luckily, there’s a lesson to be learned from everything, and being punished by the law is not an exception. There is, naturally, the one about “Don’t break the law if you don’t like the consequences it may carry”. Today there is one that stands out a little further to me.

Remember that you will almost always be surprised. When you are, you will probably stumble. But ah! You’ve already forgotten—you never know what you might stumble upon.

You are probably sitting here wondering what the hell kind of positive words of comfort those are supposed to be. Well, they’re not. Lessons aren’t meant to comfort, you dope shit. Surprise!