AN
ERASABLE
PLAN
I N T H E I N S TA N T W E F I R S T D I S C OV E R W H AT W E WA N T I N L I F E ,
W E S E T O U R S H O U L D E R S TO T H E B U R D E N O F C L E A R I N G A PAT H
TO I T S E X I S T E N C E . T H E L O N G A N D F R AU G H T P U R S U I T O F O U R
G R A N D I M P E R V I O U S P L A N E N E R G I Z E S U S T H E WAY F R E S H C OA L
S L A K E S T H E H U N G E R O F A T H U N D E R I N G L O C O M OT I V E . V E R Y F E W
AC H I E V E M E N T S F E E L A S C O M PA R A B LY E U P H O R I C A S S T R I K I N G O U R
P E R S O N A L G OA L S R I G H T I N T H E B U L L’ S E Y E . W E R E L I S H T I C K I N G
O F F O U R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S W I T H T H E S AT I S FAC T I O N O F H AV I N G
A DVA N C E D A F E W S T E P S C L O S E R TO L I F E PA N N I N G O U T T H E WAY W E
E N V I S I O N I T S H O U L D . A N D O N T H E O D D O C CA S I O N W E C O N Q U E R
Written By choe brereton
T H E M O U N TA I N S OT H E R S B A L K AT T H E T H O U G H T O F C L I M B I N G, O U R
PHOTOGRAPHY BY darshan phillips
hair By tony li · makeup By jordan best
I N N E R C H E E R S Q UA D R AU C O U S LY A P P L AU D S A N D G I V E S U S T H E
styling and set design By stacy suvino
S T R E N G T H TO K E E P U P O U R P U R S U I T S .
But in the privacy of our thoughts we recognize another driving force—the raw, intense
Bending gracefully
loathsome possibility. And it's difficult to explain why a life plan matters, or why the idea of
to bend in the gale prevents it, in the end, from snapping
dread of falling short of our prize. When the ambitions of our hearts are written in the
Pursuing our goals with in-built flexibility is not the
a bitter letdown from watching it unravel seems like a dark and dismal sentence.
in two. Circumstances change. They warp about us like the
darkest of inks and not the erasable graphite of pencils, disappointment becomes a deeply
But then, unprovoked and out of nowhere, life makes a sudden call and does the
unthinkable. The ground beneath our path fractures as the seemingly unchangeable
becomes changeable: we must move country or city, we don’t get the grades we need,
or, much to our dismay, we receive the dreaded letter of rejection that leads with, “We
regret to inform you …”
There’s no subtlety to the shift either, no warning of the flotsam our ideals are about
to become. In one snapshot the goals of life appear sharply in focus, in the next we are
doubled over, winded by a colossal wrecking ball. Like a bird twisting in the dirt from a
broken wing, it’s hard to see beyond where we’ve fallen, weighed down further still by a
consuming uncertainty of how we will recover from relinquishing our plans.
But, if history is anything to go by, even our heroes are accustomed to seeing the indelible
ink evaporate. Michael Irvin, former wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, had years of
working toward a long NFL career wiped out by an injury on the field in 1999. And the
crew of Apollo 13, though safely returned to Earth, never fulfilled their career-long mission
of setting foot on the moon. When the unpredictable rocks us without warning we cannot
help but wonder where we go from here.
Relaxing our hold
In an anecdote on dealing with unforseen change, an unknown author once said: “It's
only the view from where you sit that makes you feel defeat. Life is full of many aisles, so
why don't you change your seat?” On one hand the suggestion seems offensively simplistic,
yet on the other, it makes a fair and decent point.
The challenge when things go awry comes, primarily, from having to radically alter our
perspective. Our initial plan, now no longer attainable, seemed at the time the only plan,
a course we hoped the rest of life would bend to. We held it aloft as if carved in bronze
and pursued it like our life depended on it. The concept of holding it loosely never once
occurred to us and so our perspective was etched in stone. Yet had our plans been held like
one holds a butterfly, we would not have been surprised had some fluttered free. If we are
brutally honest, we do more than cater to the unexpected by loosely cradling our goals in
life. We surrender control too and admit, albeit reluctantly, that we’re prepared for change
and accept it happens. It’s a difficult attitude to concede to, more so when convinced that
Model: Audra Reid
determination is all we need to cross the line.
Production Assistant: Casey Weber
Glasses: Thom Browne: Black Optical (Tulsa, Ok)
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Skirt and Top: Rope ‌‌‌‌‌‌| Shoes: Miss Jackson's (Both in Tulsa OK)‌
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same as pursuing them with indifference. A tree’s ability
moving walls of a labyrinth, engineering blind alleys where
there once was a clear way. We, in turn, must respond with
fluidity, embracing the letdown each impasse brings by
recognizing it as our cue to find another way. And, at the
core of it, that’s what disappointment is—a precursor to
advancement on a different route.
Taking a new way
Nothing great can be acquired without passion, but
passion can wilt without openness to change. Adaptability
is the muscle behind progress of any kind; it offers our
passion a way to stay alive. When we resist it, obstacles
become monuments to our disappointment, and when
disappointment evolves to defeat and defeat to a state of
mind, the life within us—our drive, our enthusiasm—is
always the first to dim and flicker out.
Granted that none of us are immune to disappointment or
the way it can hold us captive, but once face-to-face with the
dead end we so dread, we are ultimately left at the mercy of
two options: stay in disbelief and live defeated, or, like our
unknown author, change our perspective and try another
way. And when a new way is allowed to take root and
flourish, that in itself is the first sign of progress.
That’s not to say facing forward is easy. There’s remorse
over what was and regret over what could have been. Hence
the decision to move on must be ours alone, made first with
conviction and then with understanding that the worst
regret of all comes from never trying.
Relaxing our grip and foregoing our ink for pencil is
not conceding to failure before we’ve begun; it’s simply a
reminder that things can change and that if they do, we will
erase, rewrite and thrive regardless.