The Principle of Planned Accidents

Friday.

Having received a lot of positive and none of negative feedback for last Friday's post, I have been desperate to maintain my record. I mean, call me what you want but I, like any other person who is not weird likes a pat in the back.

That was a digression. So... I have been busy trying to figure out whose toes to step on in this post so that I can get higher ratings (seems like that works; from observation). Of course that would have been way easy. Some MPs got injunctions banning the sale of some agricultural equipment (you could take a swipe at either the government or opposition on that), overzealous lawyers and MEC stuff, suicides, more Bushiri songs, Dr Chilima putting on boots and jumping in swamps and many other things. I mean, you could easily develop an article that could get you a few enemies out of each of those. I, on the other hand have decided not to do that, so I will stick to fact based opinions.

Accidents. For the purposes of this article, I think it will be better if we agreed on the definition of an accident as an undesirable happening. It is an undeniable fact that accidents do happen a lot in our lives. I mean, in one way or the other some things we didn't desire or we didn't plan for do occur in our lives; to different magnitudes and with variable results. Most times we go into something with some utopian thinking that we will achieve something only to end up either not achieving anything or "achieving" the opposite of what we want. A quick example? Starting a business and not making a profit or worse still, making a loss (mwaswera bwanji anzanga nonse a geni?) The point here is not to demean business, but these things do happen and it has it's own equivalents in the other trades.

Again, the main point is that not everything will turn out the way we want it to be. Some would wonder as to what I am driving at. In case the title of the article hasn't yet given it away, my point is not that you should fold your hands and gratefully receive whatever life throws at you. On the other hand, my point is that we should all take things head on, but we need to keep in mind that accidents may happen and thus need to be accounted for. These are real life issues.

A good part of my readership comprises of intellectuals in various colleges. You might relate to the fact that most of us started out in primary school thinking that we will all go to some "national* secondary school. A quarter or less made it and then we had another stressor of getting to college. After writing UEE or whatever exam others wrote (osati izi za NCHE zomangopita ku college ndi mapazi) 6000 of us qualified but there was space for only 2000 of us. Tells you something about the plans we make and their materialization. Even with the best effort there is only so much we can achieve, so we have to put that in mind. That accident. I don't have to emphasize on the issue of jobs from now. Another accident ahead.

Having said that, the main lesson of this whole piece, really is that we need to cast our nets wide in case the thing we are working towards doesn't work out due to issues beyond our control. I have been making noise here about goal setting, but even with the best goals and plans sometimes things may not work out. What do you do in that case? Cry like a baby? Of course... If you didn't plan the accident. If you did, you might as well move from option A to E without issues. Nanga si umadziwa kodi?

Of note is that it is not too late to start planning for accidents. Everyone who is reading this has a future ahead and it is never too late to plan for the future accidents.

Having said that, the whole thing of accidents gets interesting when it comes to social circles. Most times we get in contact with various people. That is inevitable but whether you continue interacting with a new person or not is purely a matter of choice. Some have gotten into bad habits, lost money, backslid in the LORD (nanenso ndine mtsogotu paja, eti?) and even gotten into bad relationships because of not planning their accidents well.

The moment you meet a new person in life, you need to realize that they have a potential of affecting every single dimension of your life. If it is someone from the opposite sex (at Richie Online we don't recognize homosexual unions) it is even worse. Anything might happen and you may end up marrying each other. The sermon from that? Before you get into constant communication with some new person you got to think of all the possible things that may go wrong (or right) and think of whether you can live with them; otherwise we only have so much control over some things when they get to an advanced stage. The only control you can have is to prevent them in the first place.

I have probably exceeded my word limit but I guess the message is clear. If this never crossed your mind before, well, here it is. If you have constantly been a practical user of the principle of planned accidents without knowing it's name, I have named it for you. Consider this a refresher and keep using it.

All in all, accidents do happen so plan for them. If you can't, at least plan for the consequences. That word called contingency, remember?

(Stops typing and puts phone in pocket).