I recently came across a speech from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Her speech, addressed to the 2016 graduating class of Berkeley, gave a personal account of her journey through grief and the perseverance she found in its depths. She unexpectedly lost her husband during a family vacation. While giving her testimony, she took the graduates through a realistic, in-depth look at what was in store for their future. Undoubtedly there would be career success (it is Berkeley after all!), there would be love, triumph, children, achievements and plenty of reasons to celebrate life along the way. But Sheryl wasn’t standing at the podium to talk about the inevitability of their future success. She was there to talk about the inevitability of their future adversities—the losses, the setbacks, the job rejections, the relationships that end, the disappointments…
Sheryl shared a distinct story about when she was making arrangements for an already-planned father/son activity that her husband and son had been looking forward to. While she and a family friend were making plans for someone else to fill in for her husband Dave, she said, “but I want Dave” and started to cry. And her friend replied with something that sunk deep into my heart. He said, “Option A is not available, so let’s kick the **** out of option B.”
It made me think about the many times I’ve failed in my own life to give option B a chance because I sunk into such deep despair over the loss of option A. The second option is never the preferred alternative, but it’s often the one that triggers the resilience that we only discover when our first option has abandoned us. With option B, there is almost always a feeling of deep disappointment, occasional resentment, and often, a longing for option A. Some of us stare at our closed doors for so long that we never actually move beyond our loss—the job we didn’t get, the person who walked away, the dream that fell through—all too often, we let those defining moments dictate the rest of our lives.
But let’s talk about what’s behind Door B. We can look at it as the next best thing which can actually look a lot like failure in our limited imaginations. It feels a lot like rejection or settling for less than what we had hoped for. But maybe if we pulled our energy from Plan A and channeled it into Plan B, we would find that there is a whole lot that Plan B has to offer–things we never would have imagined for ourselves. I’ve realized that Plan A is usually my plan, but God seems to really show up big in Plan B. In fact, I have a feeling that my Plan B was really God’s Plan A all along. Looking back, I’ve never really been disappointed by the outcome of a secondary option. It just looks different than what I have envisioned for myself and if we’re being honest, I am relieved that all of my plans are in the hands of a God who envisions much bigger things for me than I could ever imagine for myself.
So the next time you’re hurting over a door that has been closed in your life, get excited for what’s awaiting behind Door B. It might just turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. It might even actually be your Plan A, it just looks a little different than you imagined.