On Planning Your Life And Living It

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Life and plans.

It’s a funny thing, the way they work.

Just the other night I was thinking about life and what it all means. No, I was not searching for a meaning of living and getting all nostalgic but I was thinking about my life in particular. I realized that I spend so much time planning. Planning my life has consumed my life.

On the surface, it is a daily encompassing habit. I begin my day by planning out my workout and my meals and what errands I need to run and so on. My morning is consumed by my mind racing off all of the things I have to do before my day has even begun. Interestingly, I am torn when deciphering if this is such a bad thing. I try to be efficient and plan my week out so I know what’s going on and when I have free time. But the thing is, even my free time is completely planned time, so is it really “free.”

On a deeper level of obsessive planning, my life is somewhat mapped out as well. Years ago I made the conscious decision to work as hard as I possibly could throughout high school in order to get into the college that I planned on attending. My parents and I planned everything and I was going to enter the child study program to become a teacher. But plans are a funny thing, and they change as we evolve as individuals.

After switching my major three times, I have come up with a whole new set of plans. I now major in marketing and in two short years I will be surged into the real world of business. I am now happy with my decisions but it made me think, what a waste of my time and life that I spent planning my future as a teacher and look how easily my plans changed. Life got in my way and pointed me in a good direction.

Right now, my family is busy planning my brother’s life. The prospects of possible scholarships dangling right in front of him laced with incredible and endless opportunities. But yet, is he living his life and letting it happen, or planning everything like me? Is yes or no as an answer to this question necessarily a bad thing?

In my somewhat near future, I would hope to meet that special someone. Little does he know, our life is planned out. The wedding is planned and the house and the kids. Now although many girls of course dream of their weddings, is that wrong? We spend so much time planning planning planning that we miss our lives. Planning is important but there is something indefinitely more intriguing about letting life happen. Life is meant to be lived, not planned out minute by minute.

My concrete plans have changed and twisted and turned. And considering I am 20, it is only the beginning of changing plans. However, a lesson that I learned the other night while pondering about my life was simple…ease up on the plan. Life is happening every second around me and I am busy wrapped in my plans for the life that is passing by. When I wake up tomorrow, I will live my life by my laid out plan; workout, get ready, work, run to the store, hang out with friends, and see my family. But how about I give in a little bit and loosen my reign on the plan. I will let life happen and allow myself to live it and enjoy it, because in the end, life isn’t about the plan. Life is about how the unexpected turns made me who I am and no plan, not even mine, could predict that.

Plans could be good. Plans could be bad. Regardless of a person’s plans, life is happening and it yearns to be lived. That lesson can never be forgotten.