Even the best-laid plans are often disrupted and ruined by the passage of time. Wilson, the retired bank manager, learns this lesson to his cost in Maugham's “The Lotus Eater.” At the young age of thirty-five, Wilson quit his job at the bank and purchased an annuity. With the proceeds, he planned to live a simple life of leisure on the Italian island of Capri. There, he would live for the next twenty-five years until the money ran out. At that point, he would take his own life, safe in the knowledge that he'd already enjoyed greater freedom than most people would ever experience.

Suffice to say, things don't work out as intended. By the time Wilson hits sixty, his soul has been so corroded by years of indolence that he no longer has the necessary willpower to make a proper job of killing himself. He lingers on for several more years, existing in a state of poverty and degradation.

When he was a young man, reaching the age of sixty will have seemed a long way off to Wilson. He therefore felt able to make what he thought was a pretty foolproof plan. But circumstances change, and when they do, even the most meticulously constructed plans can end up going wrong. And that's precisely what happens in the case of Wilson.