"I meant to get around to doing that!"
Most of us have uttered those words at one time or another, sometimes with sincere regret; sometimes as a more or less lame excuse for either forgetting plain old not wanting to undertake the thing at hand.
At the beginning of 2025 I sincerely "meant to" start blogging on a more regular basis.
Concrete Plans vs. Uncertain Life
When we make plans and set intentions, they tend to be somewhat fixed and concrete in nature. In fact, we have often been taught — whether in school or by so-called "experts" — that we need to be specific with our goals.
That's a good thing, at least from the perspective that it establishes a clear sense of what we are actually trying to achieve... but it's a less good thing from the perspective that life is typically very uncertain.
As I have gained age and experience, I increasingly feel tempted to frame my intentions within the broader statement "as conditions allow."
Because sometimes — whether it's due to illness or some unforeseen economic setback — "condtions" don't allow us to get the things done we intended to get done, and there's very little we can do about it.
I had a retail business some years back, and we had a big fall season and holiday promotional push all planned and funded when... suddenly we had a freak storm come through our area — the insurance company called it "a 100-year event" — as a result of which our premises flooded, and we not only had to close the store for 45 days, all that money saved for our big publicity that was going to make the business seriously profitable instead went to cleanup and re-construction.
Meanwhile, the insurance company declared the whole thing "an act of God" and thereby exempted themselves from paying damages, so we were entirely out of pocket for what happened.
"I meant to do that" could entirely be applied, but the world doesn't care, sometimes.
The point of this story being that life is uncertain and we tend to forget to make that part of our plans.
Of course, the above is an extreme example, but it also exists in much milder versions that can simply be described as "Wishful Thinking."
Planning? No, Wishful Thinking!
Personally speaking, most of the times at which I have ended up declaring "I meant to do that!" the underlying issue has been "wishful thinking."
Wishful thinking in the sense that I set what I felt were perfectly reasonable plans/intentions, but they were based in the false belief that life would magically not throw me any "curveballs."
But here's the thing: Those curveballs tend to be the norm, not the exception. Expecting otherwise is what constitutes "wishful thinking!"
I meant to get the garage painted, but instead that $2,000 went to unexpected major car repair.
I meant to get a serious social media promotion effort going for a business, but instead I ended up having to take care of an aging parent while they had an illness.
I meant to refinish the deck this spring but instead I broke my foot and was on crutches for six weeks.
This is why any intentions and goals I set anymore tend to be "tempered" by this notion of if conditions allow.
I'm not suggesting that we should all sit still and never plan or do anything because "what if something goes sideways?" I merely am inviting you to consider that much of the time, life does go sideways when you least expect it... and you might well end up having to use the phrase "I meant to do that" in some context.
Onwards!
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