Awhile ago, I wrote an essay about my favorite expression--"Hope is not a plan."
The President was referring to the issues related to Hurricane Katrina, but the first time I heard President Obama say it, I thought it perfectly summed up exactly what happens when problems become disasters. It also seemed to be a perfect metaphor for what my generation usually does when a problem arises.
Hope it goes away.
Well, hope is fine, but it's not a plan.
A few months ago, when Hurricane Irene was about to bear down on Rhode Island, I found myself echoing this statement again and again.
This wasn't a hurricane that was going to catch us by surprise. We had five full business days to plan for it, and by the time the weekend rolled around and the hurricane was about to hit, we still weren't any more prepared than we were five days earlier.
So what happened?
Hope.
Hope happened.
Lucky for us, the hurricane wasn't as bad as it could have been, but even if it had done its worst, why couldn't we be ready for it?
I hate to be the guy who says "We put a man on the moon," but we put several men on the moon, and you're telling me that when it comes to hurricanes, there's nothing we can do but hope they turn out to be mild?
If every state on the eastern seaboard, with five full days, can't do any better than to cross their fingers and pray, then that's pretty embarrassing.
In Rhode Island, we experienced power outages because trees and branches came down on power lines. The year before, when we experienced another hurricane, National Grid said it was going to go around and cut down all the branches that had the potential to fall on power lines.
Guess what didn't happen?
Not only did it not happen, but they also didn't spend those five days before Hurricane Irene hit trying to do what they should have spent all year doing.
And why?
I would wager that it's because doing that would be expensive, and if we dodged the hurricane, then that expense could be avoided.
So again, hope saves money--that is, if hope pays off, which in this case, it doesn't.
It makes me think of when my mother had to renew the warranty on her furnace. She decided not to, because it had been a few years, and the furnace was working fine.
The day the warranty expired, the furnace broke.
That very day.
I like to believe that there's not a coincidence there. I think there's something in the cosmos that strikes when someone decides to roll the dice. Oh sure, some people are lucky, but there's not a large amount of luck in the world.
You have to plan.
And hope is not a plan.
The President was referring to the issues related to Hurricane Katrina, but the first time I heard President Obama say it, I thought it perfectly summed up exactly what happens when problems become disasters. It also seemed to be a perfect metaphor for what my generation usually does when a problem arises.
Hope it goes away.
Well, hope is fine, but it's not a plan.
A few months ago, when Hurricane Irene was about to bear down on Rhode Island, I found myself echoing this statement again and again.
This wasn't a hurricane that was going to catch us by surprise. We had five full business days to plan for it, and by the time the weekend rolled around and the hurricane was about to hit, we still weren't any more prepared than we were five days earlier.
So what happened?
Hope.
Hope happened.
Lucky for us, the hurricane wasn't as bad as it could have been, but even if it had done its worst, why couldn't we be ready for it?
I hate to be the guy who says "We put a man on the moon," but we put several men on the moon, and you're telling me that when it comes to hurricanes, there's nothing we can do but hope they turn out to be mild?
If every state on the eastern seaboard, with five full days, can't do any better than to cross their fingers and pray, then that's pretty embarrassing.
In Rhode Island, we experienced power outages because trees and branches came down on power lines. The year before, when we experienced another hurricane, National Grid said it was going to go around and cut down all the branches that had the potential to fall on power lines.
Guess what didn't happen?
Not only did it not happen, but they also didn't spend those five days before Hurricane Irene hit trying to do what they should have spent all year doing.
And why?
I would wager that it's because doing that would be expensive, and if we dodged the hurricane, then that expense could be avoided.
So again, hope saves money--that is, if hope pays off, which in this case, it doesn't.
It makes me think of when my mother had to renew the warranty on her furnace. She decided not to, because it had been a few years, and the furnace was working fine.
The day the warranty expired, the furnace broke.
That very day.
I like to believe that there's not a coincidence there. I think there's something in the cosmos that strikes when someone decides to roll the dice. Oh sure, some people are lucky, but there's not a large amount of luck in the world.
You have to plan.
And hope is not a plan.
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