I can’t remember the first seven days of August. They were spent driving around my favorite state (next to Michigan, as in, right next, not less than), that much I know. Mountains and pines and cacti and deer and bobcats and lizards. People too. Dogs. What else? Thinking, constantly, telling myself to lock in, make a plan, the answer is always in a better plan.
And that’s true, sometimes.
But sometimes the agility required to move to the next thing means not locking into a plan. The plan is never the goal. The plan leads to the goal. And the goal will require agility, permanently, and a resilience that a “plan” will never be flexible enough to fit into.
So, master the art of a ‘general plan’. Know what you’re about, know the general steps to get there, and then figure it out along the way. Some people thrive on predictability; I don’t. Nothing drains my zest for life like having an agenda for an entire week. If I know where I’m going to be, at what time is polite, and what to talk about when I get there, that’s enough. I don’t want to micromanage myself when my routines are already serving me.
We get sold this Instagram idea that SOMETHING WE’RE DOING IS WRONG. But what if it’s not? What if I’m sleeping well, eating more than enough, moving my body for health and enjoyment? What if I’m thriving and figuring out a bi-state life using every resource available to me? What if I don’t have to hide behind irony anymore, what if I like sincerity better? What if I’m not overthinking anymore, what if I’m loving people better, what if I figured out how to love others as much as I love myself?
It might be funny to think about having to think about all of this so much to move into it authentically. But I do have to, because I spent a lot of brain space on past lifestyles and situations, and my present happy one deserves to be thought about too. It was Amy who laughed (lovingly) at me for saying one of my favorite pastimes is “picking a thought and thinking it all the way to the end.” This is me doing that. It’s also me realizing I haven’t updated this blog in a few months. So, the thought-line is out there for everyone to read, for the sake of being consistent.