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Saturday, August 29, 2020    
 
 
At some point in our life, we plan.
 
That might be informal in our mind or imprinted on our psyche by parents or teachers, or a massive document with graphs and charts, but one way or another at various points in our path, we develop a plan.
 
For some of our plans (i.e., career, post-secondary education, founding a business), there might be incredible detail, much thought, and the inevitable – spreadsheets!
 
I’ve done many plans over the years; they often masquerade as annual budgets, forecasts, five-year plans, and the like – but they are ‘plans’ in every sense of a carpenter reading blueprints. We try to build our career, business, or life from them as if that plan is the instruction schematic to create the life of our dreams. I think it more closely resembles an IKEA assembly drawing without words and missing that special wrench for most people.
 
Take stock today, look in the mirror, and ask this: “Is my life unfolding according to my plan, or am I wandering through space and time on auto-pilot?”
 
I expect most people, whether or not they are happy, would admit to not living a life at all close to anything they actually planned or designed?
 
So, my question is, does this pose a problem?
 
Should we get back on track with our plan, develop a new strategy more aligned with our reality, or chuck any notion that our strategy has value?
 
I need to get back to more careful planning – there is far too much I need to do and want to do, to get it all done without a more formalized plan.
 
Or, I would go walk-about for the next 30 years.
 
Where am I going with this?
 
It’s about the future – the next 20-30 years. Great to be focused on living a more healthy life to stall, delay, or reverse the physical aging process – but one has to ask, for what purpose?
 
I don’t want to be hanging around or hanging on, ever, but I want to be hanging out with interesting people doing valuable work. And, if I’m lucky, occasionally write an original thought which resonates for me and for at least someone else, the way a tuning fork brings disparate things in-tune, and the way turning a lens can bring a distant fuzzy image into focus.
 
Then plan.
 
Then do.
 
 
 
 
 
Reader feedback:
 
NO WORRIES
Mark, you are so right about how we spend our worry time. Too much on all the little things and no where near enough on the big things. This is also reflected in our action time. I’m amazed we haven’t solved some of the big things over the many hundreds or thousands or more years. I wonder if the current move(s) afoot will lead to solving a big thing, equality. I’m sure hoping so, but, of course, there have been many attempts in the past. LH, Lethbridge, AB
 
Right on Mark!  Right on, LK, Calgary, AB
 
Condo boards, oy, don’t get me started, RH, Calgary, AB
 
Very apt remarks which I believe could be perfectly transposed to the recent decisions to impose masks all day, everywhere, inside and outside, in Paris and many other major French cities from tomorrow! I greatly enjoy your musings!, VJ, Paris, France



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