Beyond the Now

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Most of us are familiar with John Lennon’s well-known phrase, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.” How true that is.

In our day-to-day lives, we make small plans as we move forward—simple things like picking up milk and bread, or fresh garlic for a recipe we’ve been looking forward to making. Then life happens. An unexpected phone call, a visit, a household mishap—and suddenly the day shifts. The plan quietly slips away.

And then there are the bigger plans. A long-awaited trip postponed due to illness or weather. A wedding date changed because of circumstances no one could have predicted. Even the most carefully thought-out plans can unravel.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of plans actually unfold exactly as intended. While I’m not a betting woman, I suspect most do not. Life, in its own way, has other ideas.

We all carry a kind of “script” for how we expect life to go—centered around what matters most to us. But obstacles have a way of stepping in and rewriting parts of that script. The real question becomes: how do we respond when the story changes?

I was once given a coffee mug that read, “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” It stayed with me because it felt so true.

My own Plan B came in a way I never could have anticipated. My husband of eighteen years was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In an instant, the future we had imagined—especially the years we had looked forward to after his retirement—shifted completely. What had once been Plan A became something entirely different.

I didn’t handle it well at first. I asked all the questions we often ask in moments like these—Why did this happen? Why us? Why me? There were tears, frustration, and moments of deep sadness. But over time, I began to understand that while I couldn’t change what had happened, I could choose how I responded to it.

Slowly, I made a conscious decision to shift my perspective. To make the best of what was, rather than hold on to what was no longer possible. Not perfectly—but intentionally.

Looking back, I can see that this unexpected path taught me more than the original one might have. I became stronger. I learned to live more fully in the present. I began to focus less on what wasn’t working and more on what still was.

Life may change the script—but it doesn’t end the story.
Sometimes, it is in the rewriting that we discover who we truly are.

This very idea—the space between what we planned and what life becomes—is at the heart of the journey I explore in my new book, Crossroads: Reclaiming Identity When Life Changes Everything.

A quiet reminder from Beyond the Now:
When life rewrites your plans, you still hold the pen in how the story continues.