"The best-laid schemes of mice and men..."

Sometimes life doesn't go the way you expect.

Of course, that does not mean we should view the result with quite as dreary an attitude as Robert Burns in his poem "To a Mouse, On Turning Up Her Nest with the Plough."

In the poem, the narrator discovers that he accidentally uncovered the nest belonging to a mouse family, and laments that despite the resulting hardship for the mice, at least mice can only experience the present moment. In the narrator's case, however, he can always look back on his life's dreary prospects, and look forward to possible future fears and distresses.

Jo March of "Little Women" on a new adventure in New York.

We've all had those times when life throws us a curve ball and we're not exactly sure how to pick up and move on from there.

Sometimes things work out for the better, but sometimes it turns into an uphill battle. Either way, it can be rough.

But like anything that happens in our daily lives, lessons can always be learned from change and transition. 

I know for me, when I experience one of those curve balls, I'm often inclined to worry about what would have been, and dwell on the past, and how I could have handled things differently. I reflect on what I could have done to make things better, and regret my lack of foresight. I spend so much time on that, and forget that I can grow from the experience -- and that I can't change history.

I'm not a mouse, but I can definitely dwell more on the present moment, and take time not to gripe about the past and worry about the future. It's a gift of the human intellect to be able to remember the past and anticipate the future, but there is a time and a place for that.

Whether it's a major life decision, a story that I wish I could have written better, or some other experience, I can grow as a person by keeping a good balance of past, present and future. And not dwelling on what might have been.

Sometimes, once the dust settles and the forms of your deconstructed dreams start to emerge, you realize that there are new dreams, and new experiences and adventures, that you never would have seen if it wasn't for the original dashing of your schemes.

And then you have an even greater appreciation for what you do have, and what you can experience, right here, and right now.