“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”Alan Lakein
I don't particularly like this quote. Maybe because I am not a good planner....and it shows - believe me. I don't even know who Alan Lakein is and that bothers me. OK, so I took a moment to Google him. He's an author, and Bill Clinton credits his book to helping him achieve success by writing down all of his goals and then categorizing them by importance and then under each goal writing specific activities for achieving those goals. While that's all well and good for some, and would probably, perhaps, most definitely serve me well, I won't be making any lists and categorizing any activities under any goals. Maybe if I were planning a vacation to Montana and I was going fly fishing and moose hunting I might make a list. I am pretty sure you don't use worms and I am not even sure if moose exist in Montana. So for something like that I would make a list.
But right now my goals are pretty simple. Pay the bills on time. Don't eat sugar. Sleep all night. Don't cry. Focus. Focus. Focus. on the positive. Don't cry. Focus. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. and Don't cry.
My very first post boasts of having this grand plan in two years - and get this, I even get generous with myself and state "the latter part of the second year", or something like that. Well, today that two year time line has passed and I am not one iota, one idea or even one list closer to achieving that goal. Am I kidding myself achieving? How about starting? Not even starting it. The ideas flourished in my head, I researched how to invoice customers, and read books but when it comes time to apply the intangible to concrete - nothing. I don't know if I got bored, thought it was going to be too much work, lost confidence in my abilities, became creatively blocked or just decided to quit. I am a quitter. I quit everything. It's a bad habit, I started young, I quit Bluebirds, I quit Brownies, I quit softball (although I am sure my teammates were quit thankful for that, I quit tap, I quit piano lessons, I quit band, I quit cheering, I quit nursing school....quit, quit, quit. I quit trying on my marriage(s). One would think after all of that quitting I would tire of revisiting the same outcome of UNsuccess. But I don't. The only thing I haven't quit is quitting.
What's that other quote "Life is what happens when we are making plans?"
That quote I can agree with. Life does happen. But it doesn't just happen to me - it happens to all of us - everyday. I guess those with lists know how to handle Life because everything is written in categories and subcategories that dictate just exactly what one should do when Life appears in front of us.
One of the most recent books I have read is Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now". Great read. I needed it at the time I was reading it. His words spoke to me personally - specifically in regards to not being concerned with the past, or the future, but to only live here in the now. That can be difficult to do - I analyze everything, everyone, every thought I have...I have to make sense of it; mold it, shape it, color it so it fits perfectly where it is supposed to fit. But the truth is sometimes there is no sense to be made. Accepting that has been the hardest thing for me to understand and then to do. I have come to realize that within the confines my persona, comprised of the environment I grew up in and the way I perceive the world and how I live and love is not like others. Not that I am right and you are wrong. Just that there are differences. Vast amounts of variables that can make something so familiar to me become foreign and unknown.
Henry Miller says "“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”
I think I would rather grow than be successful.
