Dealing recently with some unexpected bad news, I became newly curious about the phrase “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Most people these days know it as a quote from John Lennon. He sings it at one point in his song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) on the Double Fantasy album.
Lennon actually got it from Readers Digest, which in 1957 attributed the quote to the cartoonist Allen Saunders, in the slightly different form “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” But other than that one mention in Readers Digest, there is no record that Saunders actually said this.
The pithiest version I know of this wise thought goes back to the original Yiddish: “Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht.” Roughly translated, it means “Man plans, God laughs.”
I like the original version best.