I’m composing this message in the San Jose airport, awaiting my flight home to Phoenix. I spoke to some awesome high school students at a few assemblies today in Ceres, California. Since I was going to need to fly into San Jose anyways, and it happened to be my mom’s birthday yesterday, I decided to add a few days to the trip. I asked my girlfriend if she’d like to join me and meet some of my family and a few of my friends from the Bay Area. She was excited–she had never been to Northern California and our trip allowed us a chance to also visit some of her friends now living in San Francisco.
We planned the trip back in February. Back then, we had our fingers crossed that the weather in the Bay Area would be pretty nice in April. Unfortunately, as the trip approached, it looked like we would be wrong. We started monitoring weather.com as soon as it could forecast our date, watching the forecast shift each day as our trip got closer and closer. We also watched our friends facebook posts. Sadly, they all described extreme cold, rain, and even some hail.
Things didn’t look well.
We called each other up as we packed. Umbrellas and heavier jackets found their way into our suitcases and we started to look at options for museums and indoor attractions in case the forecasted rain took place making an outside day in San Francisco a bit too miserable.
We landed in San Jose on Thursday night and had a really nice visit with my parents and my sister (currently working on her master’s degree in Social Work–she’s incredible!). They described how cold it had been in San Jose all that week and reiterated that San Francisco was probably even worse.
The next day, my girlfriend and I hopped in the car and headed up to the city, jackets and umbrellas packed, fearing the worse. And then we arrived in the city… and it was gorgeous.
Yes, there was some wind, but it wasn’t as bad as even the previous day. Yes, it was a little chilly (at least compared to the weather in Phoenix). But overall, the weather was perfect. The sky was blue and the presence of some clouds in the sky actually made the downtown even more beautiful. We enjoyed each activity throughout the day. As we headed out to dinner with one of my college friends and her husband, I couldn’t help but think that some of our joy in the day was simply in how great the weather was. We had expected the worse, and we experienced one of the best spring days San Francisco has offered so far this year.
I wondered if it would have been the same if we didn’t have the jackets or the umbrellas packed. The fact that we didn’t really need to use them other than a light sweatshirt here or there, made the day so pleasant. And yet, if we had to have them, we probably would have enjoyed the day anyways. We were stress free either way.
What is your preparation like?
Far too often, we only have the plan for sunshine and rainbows. If you look at a lot of our businesses and government organizations who are struggling right now, you can see their struggle simply due to the fact that they prepared budgets and business forecasts on far too optimistic scenarios. Had they prepared for the “rainy day” like a few currently thriving businesses had, they would be in far better circumstances.
Do you have a plan for your lunchtime rally if it indeed does rain? Or if the sound system breaks? Or if your computer crashes the night before the essay is due?
Sure, we can’t see every twist and turn that may come our way. There will be some surprises that catch us off-guard because they are indeed “surprises.”
But there are times where we can anticipate the “rain” and pack the umbrella. If we don’t need it, life can be pretty sweet.
Happy Monday, everyone.