The Sanford Berenberg Experience: Message of the Day

Good Morning,

About 16 years ago a garage building collapsed on me, breaking both of my legs. Long story short, the one leg which was shattered was put in a cast and it healed poorly (it is bent slightly to the side and back). Each year, I knew something needed to be done, and each year, I mentally walked through the list of the surgical procedures necessary to fix the leg. That was enough for me to ignore it for another year (and no, there are no further details of this in the rest of the message).

16 years later, the growing constant pain was a hint I could no longer avoid doing something. I needed to have it addressed. So, Karen and I visited a good doctor and he suggested a more experienced doctor… We then went to see that doctor, and the prognosis is surgery. So we made plans on when to have the surgery, what we needed to do both before and afterwards to prepare the house and for my recovery. In a sense we had pretty much everything worked out. The surgery would be at the end of October, and we had a month to prepare.

Then we got the call from the Doctor’s Office on Thursday, September 30^th. Pre-Op Testing was the following day, and the surgery would be the upcoming Tuesday, just four days later. In addition to this, we had a full weekend planned with guests coming in from out of town, a charity golf scramble to play, amongst other to dos. Our entire model of the surgery and post operative care was nuked right out from under us.

It can be mind numbing to consider all that needs to be done, knowing that there is not enough time for all, and at the same time, have more idle time than is comfortable looking at a situation all at once.

Our plans being obliterated caused us to rethink our priorities. When you have a month to plan, you can think of all the tasks and accomplishments you want to achieve in that month. When you have four days to do the same thing, you find that a lot of what you originally planned really is not as important as it once was, and then there is reduced possibility of accomplishing all tasks in such a short time.

Another take-away from the rapid change is that when we lose that feeling of being grounded in well made plans, and are floating down the river at the whim of the current, that it is okay. For the most part, our lives will not be ending because all of our plans go up in smoke before our eyes.

We have the ability to change gears and we can make new plans as necessary. Also, we should avoid the urge to make new plans immediately after our current plans vanish. Knee-jerk reactions, while the mainstay of exercises for some, are really not that wise in the long run.

Like the change in my priorities with the surgery going from one month to four days out, we need to take time to re-assess what is important to us now and with the current playing field. This helps gets us passed the overwhelm of seeing it all at once.

It is okay to be dust in the wind, because our skills, knowledge and experience do not leave us when our plans do. We still have the ability to think and plan and come up with solutions as our surroundings change.

An added benefit is also that we learn and grow from the experience. We become better prepared when those chaotic moments do arrive and toss our plans into the shredder.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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