Burned Bridges & Bobbie Burns

I'm baaaackkk.... from the week from Hell, actually.  The trouble with being an insurance broker by day (and a savage sci fi author by the wee, dark hours) is that all the REALLY GOOD stories I encounter during the day are protected by confidentiality regulations.  Ah, the stories I could tell - at least until the subjects' attorneys found my address...

What set the demons off this past week was Anthem's totally unexpected announcement that the company is pulling out of California's individual/family health insurance market next year.  The experience got me to thinking about Bobbie Burns' "To a Mouse":

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle! 

....

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy! 

Everybody who has survived sophomore English knows the phrase, 'the best-laid plans of mice & men'.  This week...this week I've found a whole new level of appreciation for the rest of that stanza.  Ours is a society bent on controlling the future.  Whether it's fixing the climate or predicting sales, we're a society of planners.  But we  can't out-plan Fate or Fortune or even corporate strategy.  What we CAN do is roll with the punches.

And I think that's where Burns got it wrong:  we can't control anything life throws at us.  But we can control our reactions to it (after a bout of weeping, whining, & a few shots of old scotch).  Plans will indeed gang aft agley
- but it's up to us to bull past the grief an' pain to find another route to joy.

You agree?  Or do you think Burns got it right?  Let me know, okay?

Hugs for now,