My wife and I went on a road trip yesterday, on account of it being my birthday. The idea was to head to a historic lodge in the nearby National Park for lunch, hike around a bit, and come back home.

Of course, when we got there, it turned out that the kitchen was closed because they had had a broken water pipe that morning, so no food served today. We briefly considered taking them up on the offer of dinner instead of lunch, but it meant we would have stayed until the first dinner service at 5:00 p.m., and that was just not in our schedule.

So we had to pivot and figure out something else to do. Which turned out to be to get back in the car and head back to the nearest city, 25 miles (40km) back the way we'd come from.

To me, no big deal. I guess I am so used to having to pivot because life does not turn out as expected... hardly ever. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I make any plans at all, since they so often turn out to be meaningless.

Thinking about life in general, these days it seems like we have to Pivot more often than ever. When I look at that through a slightly different lens of perception, it suggests that things are not turning out as expected as often as they used to.

But is that really true?

Or do we just have higher expectations as to what life is supposed to bring us?

I'd like to think not. After all, I feel like I have always had pretty modest expectations as to the outcomes of most things I undertake. I think I have become accustomed to the idea that promises made tend to be overblown most of the time, and it is just natural that we have to dial down our expectations versus what those promises are.

I expect we are also "trained" by the blatant exaggerations of advertising to not expect very much, in reality.

Of course, there's a difference between having to pivot due to a closed restaurant kitchen, and having to pivot in some major life-impacting way.

I remember how the shopping center in which I had my shop many years ago went bankrupt just a couple of months after the shop opened; I remember how a business I once owned suddenly was fenced in for 18 months due to road construction; I remember how a "dream job" I had just started unexpectedly ended because the founders of the company got in a fight and sued each other and the company shut down.

Each time... I had to "pivot or perish."

Part of what makes pivoting so stressful in the USA (in particular) is that there is no social safety net here. When something fails, you're pretty much out in the street.

And I can't help but think that when the price of failure is so extreme, we're less likely to start things, in the first place...

Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Are you good at pivoting or suddenly changing direction? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.09.01 01:03 PDT
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