Of course I've heard that insipid aphorism. Bonny Bobby Burns said it better:simplicity wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:18 amI am not sure about that but it would be nice if it were true. Again, thinking that you have control over things in general is a pretty optimistic view. OTOH, being highly productive and doing good things certainly doesn't hurt one's chances for a positive outcome.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:04 pm Unless you have a very hard head, you'll probably die. Most deadly, "accidents," are the result of people being where they shouldn't be and not paying attention. There are no guarantees, except if you do not do your best you will fail.
simplicity wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:49 pm There are many things that occur that are out of our control [pretty much everything]. The only thing we can do is react [or be proactive] with the greatest skill possible.You've probably heard this one, "You want to make God laugh, make a plan!"RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:04 pmIt's actually not a, "we," thing. Though I'm not sure exactly what you mean by things out of our control, unless you mean things like weather, climate, other natural events, or the behavior of governments (like wars or printing money and causing inflation). Most things do not happen in a instant and preparation can be made for them, as you suggest.
[The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray]The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley
In business and industry that same negative view is often called, "Murphy's law:"
Personally I've never understood that defeatest view.If anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time.
There is only one way to be certain no plan will ever fail--never make one.
Of course unexpected things can happen and no one is omniscient or infallible, but all of life depends on making choices and every choice is about the future, whether that future is the next minute, the next day, the next year, or the rest of one's life.
No one can know the future and all one's choices must be made in the context of what one does know, including planning for the possible unexpected.
This idea that the unexpected can happen is a non-essential. The essential is that most things can be predicted. Just because some unexpected things can happen does not mean everything is unexpected and every plan will fail. Just because no one can know everything does not mean they know nothing.
Everything one does in life depends on the fact that one can make plans that will succeed, from preparing a meal to performing a heart bypass. Everything that you use every day testifies to the success of planning from your home to your clothing, all the food you eat and medicine you take. Every successful industry is only possible because plans, some extremely complex and very long-term elaborate plans, are not only possible but totally successful.
Failure is the exception and almost always because the plans were not well made.
Whatever the excuse, most of the failures in life are because individuals do not make plans, do not take the long view of life, but live from moment to moment (from pay check to pay check). They live for the day, without any consideration for next week, or next year, or what any of the long term consequences of what they choose will be--what the future consequences of their refusal to learn all they can, to develop their abilities and skills will be, what deprivations they will suffer because they spend all their money (or other resources) now and save nothing for the future. Then act as though all the bad things that happen to them are not their fault but the result of some inexplicable evil world.