My Timeline Vs. The Universe's

Things have not been going according to plan lately.  To be more succinct, things have not been going according to my plan.  And, if there is one thing I could never be accused of, it couldn't be living without a schedule, a calendar and a plan. Alas, even at this stage in the aging game, I still struggle a bit with the realization that the rest of the world, nay, the universe, is not exactly adhering to my plan of how things ought to be going down!

I know this may come as a shock to some of you (trust me, it shocks me too), but the weather doesn't answer to my bidding, nor do coworkers, grown kids, the US Postal Service, the chickens, the plants growing in the garden, my neighbors, stoplights, or even my digestive system.  Seems all these and more are operating within their own rhythms and reason.  My tenuous access to personal flexibility and my ability to, I'll say it, control the world are definitely at risk at here.

One of the phrases I say all the time is "Flexibility is my middle name!" Who am I kidding? It is really more of a mantra to remind myself that I need to chill, than it is a fact that anyone who knows me believes.  In fact, Teri is usually quick to point out that if I have to keep saying it with such emphatic determination, it might not actually be true.

Here are some current personally-invented challenges that owe entirely to the fact that the Universe is refusing to get in line with my very apt attempted manipulation of time management:

• airline schedules
• telephone messages, emails and customer issues at work (seriously, how am I going to accomplish my goal of cleaning out all my incoming messages if they keep, well, coming in?!)
• chicken egg-laying, egg-setting, deck-pooping, fence-trampling, etc. 
• my kids' schedules--I could so give them checklists & calendars & daily planners and their lives would be sailing along s-m-oooo-th! 
• Teri's schedule--ditto on the task lists.Sheesh! Could she be efficient with my scheduled offerings!
• sunny days vs. rainy days and optimal temperatures

Needless to say, you probably see what a set-up this is? It may come as a bit of a surprise, but none of these folks, critters, institutions, and natural systems has as much confidence in my ability to manage time, tasks and schedules as I do.  In fact, they all seem to be operating on counter schedules and timelines of their own--ones that often seem in direct opposition to my desire to bring order and peace to the little world around me!

As I also am inclined to say, If I was in charge of the world...which, of course, I'm not (a fact Teri seems to think is a pretty reassuring reality)--but, If I was in charge of the world, we'd be getting a whole lotta stuff done and there wouldn't be this willy nilly wandering, wars and time wasting we've got going down right now. I wouldn't need plans B & C because folks couldn't get it together to adhere to my plan A.

For whatever reason, the Universe has decided to not put me in charge, despite my natural propensity for order (I think, maybe, Martha Stewart is the one I need to bump out of the corner office), and the albatross around my Outlook calendar is learning to accept what minimal control and apparent chaos really exists in this crazy world I call my awesome life...