Do you know how to make God laugh? Tell him about your plans.

I have started planning again after a long period of absence, but this week I caught a curve ball. I am sticking to the plan, and I am determined to have the last laugh.

I have a friend who has planned her child’s life from birth to death. The kid gets about 6 months off somewhere around the age of 55 but in general she has tracked his future life and achievements in her mind for years. She has built an annexe on her house for him to live in as an adult and has moved close to the headquarters of the company that she is sure he will be working for. She has ensured that she will be around to help with his children, and he will be able to retire early thanks to the financial plan she has decided he will follow. God help my friend (or her son) if he deviates from any of this. Luckily so far, he has adhered to the plan, but this has only involved school and university. There is still plenty of time for life to get in the way of her plans.

I have planned very little for either of my children. My eldest was very petite and bendy as a child had a talent for fitting herself into astonishingly small cardboard boxes. I suggested she use this talent to work as a magician’s assistant on the Vegas strip. What an adventure that would be. She said she would rather get a proper job and is now as university. I think my youngest would be an amazing comedienne, she has funny bones. She wants to study languages at university instead. Traditional route planning is not my forte, but my children seemed to have found their own paths and made their own plans. Maybe that was my plan all along?

I stopped planning my own life at the age of 19. By that age I had already devoted more than half my life to the plan of being a doctor. More than half my tiny life, battling through crappy state education, the wrong accent and no nepotistic ‘leg ups’. But I made it. A prized place at medical school. It lasted less than 4 months.