What’s the old idiom? God thinks little of the plans of mice or men? No… lemme look it up… Jesus! Old Steinbeck pulled his famous book title from a poem circa the 1700’s. Robert Burns wrote way back when: “The best laid schem o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” The fill poem can be found here.

In essence, planning for the future is a gamble. We are often at the mercy of larger schemes and things we have no means of being prepared for. Whatever measures you might take to protect yourself, there always remains that chance that you’ll be wiped out.

Dower.

So what’s a feller to do? Well, to start off, something small and manageable. Like art a day and check in here often. Share stuff here and there and just do it regularly. Work up a routine and include the kids book stuff in it. But make sure to make concerted efforts to do all this stuff. Whatever happens will happen. Ultimately, like anybody, control what I can; accept what I can’t.

Now, for behind the scenes stuff. Managing stress and so on. I’m feeling bold. I feel like I’ve finally found a system. Life is scary as ever cause I know that something can come from any direction. Call it jittery optimism or pessimistic denial, but here I am wearing a nervous smile.

A whole bunch of effort is on holding and maintaining what little I have. I think its time we gamble some and up aggression. Rather than nursing a savings, it’s time to venture out and aquire more. There is such a thing as being too conservative.