Things which you do not hope happen more frequently than things which you do hope.

Life delivers more unforeseen things than planned ones, and that cuts both ways. Disappointments arrive from directions you were not watching, and so does a fair share of the good, which is easy to forget while you are cataloguing the losses. Planning is still worth doing; it just does not carry the authority you would like.

Hold your plans firmly enough to act on and loosely enough to change. Leave a little room in the diary and the budget for whatever was not on the list. And when something unhoped-for turns out well, notice it, since those go unrecorded more often than setbacks.