The Best Laid Plans . . .
I've thought a lot about the future. My future with my wife, my family, my kids, my career, my business ventures, places we'd live, things we'd do, destinations we'd visit, etc. Late in my college days I wrote a strategic plan for my life. A few years ago I've developed a personal mission statement and a list of goals and aspirations. To date I've written 9 business plans made up of smaller individual plans including marketing plans, strategic plans, financial plans, and etc. I've negotiated business mergers between companies and put together plans that outline the terms of the merger. I've put together plans for re-structuring existing businesses as an organizational consultant. I've helped plan worship services for local churches that I've served in. I've made plans for events, conferences, vacations, and the list goes on and on. In short, I've made a lot of plans.
I've come to realize a couple things about plans. First and most important rule of making plans is this; almost nothing ever goes to plan. Second most important rule of making plans; almost nothing ever goes even close to plan. Third most important rule of making plans; almost nothing ever even resembles the plan . . . almost never . . .
So why all this planning? Quite simply, we're addicted to planning because we're addicted to control. Planning gives us the illusion of control. It gives us a certain level of comfort to know that we've analyzed a situation, thought through all the possible scenarios and variables, considered all the resources at our disposal, and formulated a plan for "success". And we can make plans because we live in a country and an era where we have the luxury of predictability. I know that if I drop a letter in the mail the postal service will deliver it within a certain number of days. I know that if I pay my bills I'll continue to have the ability to surf the web, send an email, turn on my lights, make phone calls, take a hot shower, and etc. I know that the corner gas station is almost never going to run out of gas and if they do there are ten more down the street that are almost never going to run out of gas. I know that I'll always be able to get food at the grocery store and I know that they're open 24 hours. I know that McDonalds food is always going to taste like McDonalds food whether I'm in Iowa or Ireland - seriously, I know this from experience - its weird. I know that there are roads that connect me with the places I need to go and I have a car that will take me there at a particular speed, which gives me ability to predict an ETA with great accuracy. If roads will not suffice, I can jump on a train or a plane and get the same level of predictability. You get the point. There are systems that exist "underneath" us that combine to create a grand foundational infrastructure that produces an environment of predictability in which we can make . . . wait for it . . . plans.
What most of us don't realize is that this is a very recent phenomena in the context of human history and even today it only exists in a few parts of the world. America, and more specifically the U.S. is one of those places where this infrastructure is particularly robust, and thus, we are champions of planning and predictability.
This is all well and good and I'm not knocking systems or infrastructure that provide some level of stability and predictability. They are wonderful luxuries of the modern society in which we live and I appreciate them. But I fear that, for me at least, these luxuries have turned me into a bad improviser. Moreover I fear that my addiction to planning has caused me to forsake the present. Planning is something that you do in order to manipulate the future. It has little or no bearing on the here and now. So if you're spending time planning, then by default, you are, to a degree, forsaking the present moment you're in in order to plan a specific moment in the future. A good example of this is my incessant pouring over financial proforma documents and spreadsheets. I've spent hundreds of hours predicting the financial trajectory of business ventures and missed meals, missed laughter, missed family movie nights, and the list goes on. I've spent hours missing the "now" working out plans for the future. Now those plans take up space on my hard drive in a folder marked "archive" because they were either abandoned or never came to fruition. What have I learned from this? None of those plans were worth missing a meal, or a family movie night.
The problem with planning is the variables that you can't account for. The outliers that you can't plan for and the conditions outside your control will always be the downfall of any "great" plan and will force you to improvise, or at least that has been my experience.
So what do I (or we) do? In light of this I am thinking of what it might look like to take a shorter view of life and trust my instincts more. I'm still going to plan, but I'm adopting a posture of open-handedness with my plans. I'm going to hold loosely to them and expect that changes will be necessary along the way. I'm planning on "winging it" at times. I'm going to hone the skill of improvisation and pray to develop a keen sense of discernment for those unpredictable moments when a course correction is needed and decisions must be made. I'm going to create space for spontaneity and scale back the schedule. When I do make plans I'm going to spend less time agonizing over details and trying to predict specific outcomes. I'm going to allow my plans to be more general, more vague, less bound to a strict timeline, less rigid. I'm going to spend more time thinking about now, and what it means to make a good decision in THIS moment. I'm going to think more about who I am and allow that to inform my actions and attitudes in the moment. When I plan, I'm going to stick to basic things that can be supported by the infrastructure around me. I'll plan what we're going to eat for dinner, where we're going next weekend, what we're going to watch on TV. Maybe, in some odd twist of irony, this approach will afford me and my family the peace, confidence, and stability that we've been planning for all along.
I've come to realize a couple things about plans. First and most important rule of making plans is this; almost nothing ever goes to plan. Second most important rule of making plans; almost nothing ever goes even close to plan. Third most important rule of making plans; almost nothing ever even resembles the plan . . . almost never . . .
So why all this planning? Quite simply, we're addicted to planning because we're addicted to control. Planning gives us the illusion of control. It gives us a certain level of comfort to know that we've analyzed a situation, thought through all the possible scenarios and variables, considered all the resources at our disposal, and formulated a plan for "success". And we can make plans because we live in a country and an era where we have the luxury of predictability. I know that if I drop a letter in the mail the postal service will deliver it within a certain number of days. I know that if I pay my bills I'll continue to have the ability to surf the web, send an email, turn on my lights, make phone calls, take a hot shower, and etc. I know that the corner gas station is almost never going to run out of gas and if they do there are ten more down the street that are almost never going to run out of gas. I know that I'll always be able to get food at the grocery store and I know that they're open 24 hours. I know that McDonalds food is always going to taste like McDonalds food whether I'm in Iowa or Ireland - seriously, I know this from experience - its weird. I know that there are roads that connect me with the places I need to go and I have a car that will take me there at a particular speed, which gives me ability to predict an ETA with great accuracy. If roads will not suffice, I can jump on a train or a plane and get the same level of predictability. You get the point. There are systems that exist "underneath" us that combine to create a grand foundational infrastructure that produces an environment of predictability in which we can make . . . wait for it . . . plans.
What most of us don't realize is that this is a very recent phenomena in the context of human history and even today it only exists in a few parts of the world. America, and more specifically the U.S. is one of those places where this infrastructure is particularly robust, and thus, we are champions of planning and predictability.
This is all well and good and I'm not knocking systems or infrastructure that provide some level of stability and predictability. They are wonderful luxuries of the modern society in which we live and I appreciate them. But I fear that, for me at least, these luxuries have turned me into a bad improviser. Moreover I fear that my addiction to planning has caused me to forsake the present. Planning is something that you do in order to manipulate the future. It has little or no bearing on the here and now. So if you're spending time planning, then by default, you are, to a degree, forsaking the present moment you're in in order to plan a specific moment in the future. A good example of this is my incessant pouring over financial proforma documents and spreadsheets. I've spent hundreds of hours predicting the financial trajectory of business ventures and missed meals, missed laughter, missed family movie nights, and the list goes on. I've spent hours missing the "now" working out plans for the future. Now those plans take up space on my hard drive in a folder marked "archive" because they were either abandoned or never came to fruition. What have I learned from this? None of those plans were worth missing a meal, or a family movie night.
The problem with planning is the variables that you can't account for. The outliers that you can't plan for and the conditions outside your control will always be the downfall of any "great" plan and will force you to improvise, or at least that has been my experience.
So what do I (or we) do? In light of this I am thinking of what it might look like to take a shorter view of life and trust my instincts more. I'm still going to plan, but I'm adopting a posture of open-handedness with my plans. I'm going to hold loosely to them and expect that changes will be necessary along the way. I'm planning on "winging it" at times. I'm going to hone the skill of improvisation and pray to develop a keen sense of discernment for those unpredictable moments when a course correction is needed and decisions must be made. I'm going to create space for spontaneity and scale back the schedule. When I do make plans I'm going to spend less time agonizing over details and trying to predict specific outcomes. I'm going to allow my plans to be more general, more vague, less bound to a strict timeline, less rigid. I'm going to spend more time thinking about now, and what it means to make a good decision in THIS moment. I'm going to think more about who I am and allow that to inform my actions and attitudes in the moment. When I plan, I'm going to stick to basic things that can be supported by the infrastructure around me. I'll plan what we're going to eat for dinner, where we're going next weekend, what we're going to watch on TV. Maybe, in some odd twist of irony, this approach will afford me and my family the peace, confidence, and stability that we've been planning for all along.
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