Day 1687
Man Makes Plans & God Laughs
Just when you think you have it figured out, life has a way of nut tapping you. Yesterday, I published an entire essay about how you are the energy you attract. Love your neighbor. Meet people where they are. Laugh with the happy boomer at Cook Out. I went to bed feeling pretty good about myself. And then Satan apparently read it & decided, oh, let’s play some mind games with this guy. GET BEHIND ME SATAN!
Jokes aside, here’s how this morning actually went. I woke up & Paige was in pain. Sloan broke my blue light glasses. Ryder is deep in a clinging phase where the only acceptable location on planet Earth is my arms or his Mama’s, & any attempt to put him down is treated as an act of war. All I wanted was ten minutes of snuggle time with my wife before the day got going. Instead, it was thing after thing after thing.
Then, later that morning, Paige mentioned that Sloan had bought something on her Kindle. And I snapped. “Why do you even have that feature?” Which, to be clear, is not what a man who just wrote a whole post about radiating love & joy is supposed to say to his wife who is in pain at eight in the morning. Less than 12 hours. That’s how long my enlightenment lasted…
So naturally I did what any man seeking inner peace would do & left the house. Drove to a coffee shop. Ordered a cold brew. Sat down with my laptop like a fugitive from my own family. The irony of running away from the people I love in order to go write about loving people is not lost on me.
But once the caffeine kicked in I felt better. Yesterday I wrote about the socks being the thing that make sure I run. The little trigger that makes the bigger decision easier. Getting in the car & driving to get coffee was the socks. 90 minutes of ~silence~ is exactly the gap I needed to go from reacting to responding. Proverbs 15:1 tells us, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” That wisdom didn’t magically kick in at 7am. It kicked in at 10 in the Southern Grounds parking lot. Count it!
Before I head home, I’m going to grab Paige a BodyArmor & make sure she’s taken care of. I can’t undo snapping at her this morning, but I can apologize & do better. Being tired, having two little kids, & dealing with broken glasses doesn’t excuse taking my frustration out on my wife. She’s already in pain. The last thing she needs is me adding to it. I love this woman, & I want my actions to reflect that, especially when things aren’t going my way.
Man makes plans & God laughs. It’s an old Yiddish proverb, but the Bible got there first. Proverbs 16:9 says a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Yesterday’s post was the plan. This morning was the laugh. Maybe it was God laughing, maybe it was Satan, & honestly I’m not sure it matters. Either way, I’m cool now, & the lesson is still the same.
Writing about good energy was never a declaration that I’d mastered it. It is a reminder to practice everyday for the rest of my life. Falling on my face the very next morning doesn’t make yesterday’s words false. If anything, it proves they’re necessary. You don’t write “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” on your wall because you’ve already got it down. You write it because you keep forgetting.
I can’t help but smile about it. Of all the mornings to get tested, it had to be the one right after I told the internet how to live. God has a sense of humor, & apparently so does my toddler.
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I’ve got a lot of work to do. But I’d rather be up front about my shortcomings than pretend the guy who wrote yesterday’s post & the guy who snapped about the Kindle are two different people. They’re the same guy.
Here’s what makes this morning even funnier. In the middle of all the chaos, Paige told me she appreciated the handwritten letter I wrote her. The one I mentioned yesterday. The one that took time & attention instead of a 10-second text. She even said she wants to be cared for.
Think about that for a second. I’ve been wanting to step up & lead this family. And here’s my wife, in the middle of a rough morning, basically saying yes, please, do that. The exact answer I’d been looking for arrived on the one morning I least deserved it. Which, if you think about it, is kind of how grace works.
And the kids? Sloan didn’t break my glasses to ruin my day. She’s a kid. Kids break things. Ryder isn’t clinging to me or his Mama to annoy us. He’s clinging to us because his dad & mom are his whole world. My kids don’t need a perfect father. They just want us. They want our attention. I don’t need to freak out when they make a mistake. I’ve made plenty, & I made a fresh one this morning before 8am. (Also, let’s be honest, a toddler accidentally buying a book on a Kindle is a hilariously good problem to have.)
So I did a little reflecting on all my blessings, & already I feel better. I woke up today. My wife reads my letters & wants me to lead. My kids want me so badly they won’t let me go. I have coffee in my hand whenever I want, I have work worth doing, & two legs that can carry me on a run tonight if I can get the socks on. Life is a long, strange trip. You will make mistakes, not get what you want, & deal with challenges constantly. But you also woke up today, & that alone is worth more than most of the stuff we get upset about.
Yesterday I said I’m constantly becoming more conscious of the energy I bring into every interaction. Today I’d add something to that. The goal is to shrink the gap between the slip & the catch. Two days ago at Cook Out it took me until the drive home to realize I’d missed a moment with that happy boomer. This morning it took me about an hour & one cup of coffee. That’s progress. That’s the 10 jumps compounding, just applied to your character instead of your calves.
I am what I drink, & today it was a cold brew. Fitting hahahaha.
I’m going to close this one out. Nothing a reset, maybe a run later, & some quiet time with everything I’m grateful for can’t fix. I wrote today. Medium completed. That’s a win in itself. And if I can keep catching myself even in my weak moments, like waking up to a pile of chaos the morning after telling the whole internet about good energy, then maybe I’m actually learning something.
So here’s my challenge for you. The next time you fall short the morning after your best intentions, don’t throw out the intention. Go get the BodyArmor. Walk back in. Try again.
You are still the energy you attract, anon. Even on the mornings you forget.
11/3/26
Conor Jay Chepenik
