If life went the way we planned, I would have something profound to say in my last column as editor in chief. I would have a pearl of wisdom; a golden nugget of knowledge; some secret sage advice to pass on to future generations.

If life went the way we planned, I wouldn't be desperately trying to wrack my brain for 500 words to sum up my two-year term as editor in chief.

But maybe that is the one thing I have learned after 261 editions of The Observer with my name at the top of the masthead — nothing ever turns out the way we plan.

We analyze; we organize; we predict and we prepare but in the end even our best-laid plans are thrown awry by the completely unpredictable.

If everything I had planned had turned out exactly how I hoped, I would have led a pretty dull life. Without the completely unpredictable, the utterly unexpected and the chaotic, I never would have experienced some of my greatest successes.

Maybe that's why I have loved my job so much for the past two years. For all the stresses, frustrations and aggravations, I've never experienced something more rewarding than walking into the dining hall and watching hundreds of people read The Observer. They don't understand how many re-edits the page 7 lecture story went through or that we had to drive the film to Walgreens at 3 a.m. because the photo processor broke. All they see is that somehow we pulled it all together and got 20-something pages of newsprint into the bins the next morning.

If life were easy and predictable, it wouldn't be worth living. It's the fluctuations and changes that make things exciting.

The nights when the most things went wrong, when a story broke late or an idea took a few more hours to materialize usually produced the best papers. I remember nights like election night 2000 when we finally stumbled out of the office at 7:30 a.m. much more than I remember a routine night in April when everything was done by 2 a.m.

Did I accomplish everything I wanted to get done? Of course not. Looking back on my application from two years ago, I probably got 10 percent of my goals done — and that's being generous.

Nearly every improvement, innovation and reorganization I promised in my original eight-page application failed to materialize. But at the same time, improvements, innovations and reorganizations that I never imagined came to fruition through the hard work of the dedicated staff that works with me. I'd like to think I somehow inspired them to greatness. But really, I just feel privileged that I was allowed to work with them.

If I could somehow condense 261 editions into a single sentence of wisdom or a few words of truth, I would be cheating myself. Life is completely unpredictable. It can't be summed up in some pithy phrase that can be printed on a bumper sticker.

But tonight, my unpredictable journey comes to an end. I have to pass on this incredible experience to the next lucky editor who will hopefully love this job as much as I do. I hope he enjoys the ride as much as I did.

Contact Mike Connolly at connolly.28@nd.edu

• When the unpredictable journey ends