Relative Something

Hello, I’m John W. Hays, and I have a problem with planning. It bugs me.

I don’t know why it bothers me so much to plan in advance. There are times when I do pretty well at it. Maybe, it is the very fact that I am bothered by the need to deal with planning, that I tend to get it done. If I didn’t give it any thought, I might not prepare myself for anything.

When it comes to planning, truth be told, I don’t even like deciding what clothes to wear every day. That chore gets compounded, twice a week, when I need to prepare to leave early in the mornings to play soccer before work. If I don’t take care of that preparation the night before, I am hard-pressed to get out the door on time. This week, I have the added burden of making sure I am packed in advance to leave immediately from work on Wednesday, to get to the airport for the trip to Boston.

I suppose the thing that makes this such a peeve for me is my ongoing dilemma of focusing on being fully present in the moment, at the same time as being prepared for future moments. And that doesn’t take into account my interest in genealogy and remembering the past. It all seems so at odds. It is, and it isn’t. A lot like everything in life.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing that is really bugging me in this regard is the recent addition of needing to decide all my own meals every day. It is proving to be a great calorie reducing diet for me. Last night, I didn’t get around to taking care of the decision about what to eat, so I just didn’t bother eating. It is a solution I can live with when in need of some relief from the burden of at least one little planning decision.

That is a much more acceptable detail of life for me to neglect planning, than say, choosing my daily wardrobe. It’s not like I could get away with not bothering to wear clothes and going about my days naked, after all.