Best Laid Plans

I’ve heard the phrase most of my life! Not because I’m Scottish, I’m not. I’m Irish. I’m not a Catholic Celt, so I guess that doesn’t really count, but rather a Protestant. But make no mistake, although there is Welsh blood mixed in, I bleed more GREEN than BLUE, and I have been accused on more than one occasion of having kissed the Blarney Stone. If none of that means anything to you, don’t worry – you should still get the gist of this post.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men Go oft awry!” – Scottish poet Robert (Rabbie) Burns penned those words in 1785. As part of the Kilmarnock volume in a poem entitled, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785.” Legend has it that Burns was ploughing the fields of his Mossgeil Farm in Mauchline, East Ayrshire, Scotland, and accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest, which it needed to survive the winter.

The main theme of Burn’s poem is the futility of planning for a hopeful future in the face of unforeseen circumstances and consequences. Burns wasn’t just an organic sustenance farmer, but he was also a poet with deep appreciation for the simpler things in life. The poem expresses sympathy for the mouse and recognizes that both humans and animals face difficulties and struggles which are often similar to one another. It reminds us of the uncertainty of life and the need for sympathy for others, and it encourages us to live in the present rather than the past (“I backward cast my eye”) or the future (“And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear.”).

“To a Mouse” gained popularity and became a timeless piece of literature that used to be taught in schools. It has been translated from the original old Scot dialect into various languages, yet usually, only part of this obscure line in the entire poem is ever quoted or used when people forget something or face unintended consequences of (often) their own actions.

So what has all this had to do with me? Look at the date of my last post: August 7th – it is now November. And, like the plough that unearthed the mouse’s house – I unearthed this blog. I intended to write at least once a week! (Best laid plans of … well, you get it!)