Readiness Is All

By Ben Murphy

As we've now all been flung headlong into a new decade, "what we've resolved to do with it" is at the forefront of the minds of a lot of folks – our efforts to lose the weight, our ambition to get that promotion, our resolution to spend more quality time with our families.

I'm a firm believer in the school of thought that you make your own way. We create our own opportunity. I'm pretty sure that those who wait (for the proverbial good things) often continue waiting. But I've become increasingly aware that despite my best laid plans and hardest efforts, some of the best things in life often come out of left field. Funny thing, isn't it? And somewhat annoying in a way because it's nice to feel in control of our own destiny even if we're not… a little bit of god in all of us, perhaps?

This nuance of life is something that I've been pondering quite a bit as of late. Why do I work so hard to create opportunity when the best ones seem to come from nowhere? After all, we can't create serendipity, can we?

I can't tell you how many emails we've gotten at TheFatherLife.com from guys who have had great careers (execs, journalists, etc.), yet when their kids came along, it became an unanticipated opportunity for them to trade in their corner office for a diaper bag and for their wives to pursue their own careers. Roles reversed. A great situation unfolded… out of left field.

I've come to the conclusion that while our strivings may not open the door we intend them to, they exponentially increase the number of doors that will end up opening. There is reward for effort even if the reward is one that hadn't occurred to us.

This was all summed up for me recently in a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "The readiness is all." Perhaps it is that we should work hard and then stand ready for whatever comes out of it knowing that, regardless of the outcome, we've done our best. Sometimes it's what we planned on, and sometimes it's something we couldn't have come up with in our wildest imaginations.

So, as you're reading this, already full-speed-ahead into 2010, know that it is good to work hard at what you do, be it parenting or a vocation. But be flexible for what life dishes out in response.

It might be what you planned on. Or it might just be better. Be ready to make the most of it.

This article originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of Genesee Valley Parent Magazine. Copyright 2010.