Last week, my mom and I made the drive to Columbia so I could accept the William E. James Outstanding Young Journalist Award at the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest awards ceremony.

For an achievement with the word “outstanding” right there in the title, there was a surprisingly good chance I was not going to show up to receive it. The problem had nothing to do with whether the award mattered to me. It did, and having my mom there to see me receive it made the occasion even more meaningful. The problem was the ceremony was Saturday morning in Columbia, and my daughter had a game that afternoon in Excelsior Springs.

For weeks, I went back and forth about whether to go. On paper, there was enough time to attend the ceremony and make it home before her game, but parenting has apparently made me very good at imagining every way the plan could go wrong. A delay getting out of Columbia, car trouble or another unexpected problem could mean missing something that mattered to…