Here is what I thought yesterday.
Today, I showered, shaved, put on a new shirt, and reached the venue an hour in advance.
Me and my fellow speakers had a jamming session over coffee, just to warm up.
The session was at 10 am.
Or so I thought.
When I walked up to the backstage at 9.45 am, they looked at me quizzically.
“Well, I am the one slotted at 10”, I said.
“No, you are not”, she shot back.
“Err…yes I am”, I retorted.
She took out the itinerary…ran her fingers down the page and well past the 1o am, 11 am, 12 pm (what??), right down to 3 pm. “Ah, here you are”, she said triumphantly.
I looked at the itinerary that she held in her hands…there had to be some mistake.
I whipped out my phone, and checked the mail trail.
Well, the long and short of it is – the timing had been changed midway through the mail chain, and I had failed to notice it. So much for me boasting about my eye for detail.
I sheepishly walked back to my fellow speakers and explained the situation – thankfully, they were understanding, and we agreed to group back at 3.
I then went back home, and took a 15 min nap.
They say that you prepare and plan for the best of things, and then life happens.
What happens when your best laid plans are thrown to the wind? How do you feel when you are so close, yet something puts a spanner in the works?
You almost feel cheated yes? Or a sense of relief, in some cases (exams for instance).
The fact of the matter is, we are usually disappointed by our own expectations. We want things to happen, sometimes even when they are unreasonable, and when they don’t, we feel bad.
It is as if, in some situations, we set ourselves up for sadness.
Whatever happened to living life as it happens? Taking things as they come?
Well, personally speaking, that would be the other end of the spectrum. I would prefer to stick to somewhere in the middle, the quasi-Buddhist path if you may (well the supposedly “middle path” advocated by Buddha is misinterpreted, by the way).
The point is to avoid expectations. If we can do that, as much as possible, then we somehow disconnect ourselves from the outcome, and take it as it happens. What the Bohemians refer to as Karma Yoga (which again, is heavily misinterpreted).
So what happened to my speaking session finally?
It went great!
We came back (with a vengeance) at 3, and had an informal, informative and insightful discussion. Just three of us talking among ourselves, for around an hour, and churning out a good number of thoughts and ideas.
A lot of people came and appreciated us afterward. Not too bad, after a bit of a disastrous start.
Much like life:)
See you tomorrow!