While I applaud the maturity you're exhibiting in your thinking process, I think you may be limiting yourself by trying to make such major life decisions so early.
I have found it is better to be guided by principles and values, than plans. I suppose I'm saying better to have a map and compass, than a rigidly timed itinerary. With a map and compass, you understand how to navigate your territory... how to explore, yet still avoid road hazards. With a rigidly timed itinerary, if there's no pre-planned time to smell the proverbial roses and be open to exploration, you're closed off to some of the fruitful spontaneity that really enhances and contributes to our life experiences. You're letting a guidebook tell you what to explore, instead of your senses and sense.
What you're describing is like running an experiment and presuming that your calculations are so precise, and that your hypothesis and conclusion are so perfectly aligned that you've eliminated the testing and discovery of the process... in fact, you've left out the process altogether. There's no point to conducting the experience (life) in the first place if you already *believe* you know what you're going to find.
I'm 34... which may seem ancient to you... When I was 15, I sounded a lot like you. But my life is completely different and infinitely more wonderful than anything I could have planned then. At 15, I hadn't travelled. Or been on my own. Or failed. I'd never gone hungry. Or lost anything I held dear. I hadn't shed one tear that wasn't over something stupid. Every crisis I'd experienced was something I exaggerated in my own mind... like who does or doesn't like me, who said I was too fat to be a cheerleader, whose slumber party I didn't get invited to, OMG I made a B+... all things that don't matter AT ALL today. I didn't know pain, or love, or joy. I hadn't had time to collect more data for my experiment; I hadn't lived enough. There were so many things I hadn't been exposed to that are now a huge part of my life, like sustainability, design, philanthropy, art, spirituality... I firmly believed until the moment before I became a mother that I never wanted to be one.
At 15, there was no room for failure in my life. It simply wasn't an option.
At 34, I'm still afraid of it, but I embrace it as part of the process. I wake up in the morning and I think... well first, I pray silently... then my husband and I reach around our 9-year-old son (who's too afraid to spend the whole night in his room) and whisper that we're grateful to share another day together... I think about what else I'm grateful for... THEN I think "how will I f*** up today, and how will I grow from it?" ... then I get out of bed ready to explore my day and unfold the answer to that like a present. That IS the present.
At 15, I hadn't planned anything spiritual, nor a husband, or children, or nurturing them with organic food from our greenhouse, or quilting, or being a designer, or... I hadn't buried anyone, or truly shared myself, or supported a friend through chemo, so I didn't know what gratitude felt like. I hadn't been broken yet. It's like only wearing brand new shoes, and not yet knowing that there's a difference when you wear a well-worn pair.
At 15, when a thirtysomething would say "but you're still a baby," I would defend myself, recounting all the things that made me so mature and worldly.
At 34, when a fiftysomething says "but you're still a baby," I say nothing... and listen for any wisdom he or she will share.
15, 34, 67, 72, 96... Those are all ages that are way to young to so firmly *believe* that we know exactly who we are and what we want to do that we aren't open to experiencing the world and other people, and being transformed by them.
That "excitement" that you're talking about IS life. It sounds like you're about to remove variables from the equation... like you're taking the experimentation out of the experiment.
There's a way to be focused, yet still gracefully open. Somehow, I think humility is the key to that. In my opinion, there's an arrogance that comes with planning so rigidly, and I've felt the pain and utter bewilderment at seeing those plans that I *believed in* crumble. I know it sounds paradoxical, but I never stood until I realized that there was no ground beneath me. Truly, my darkest day was also my brightest. It was when I realized that plans weren't protection, nor were they solid, permanent, immutable, or "real."
When all my precious, precious plans failed is when I started to live.
Hope that makes sense... everybody's a philosopher at 3am...
Answered Nov 23, 2011
Edited Nov 23, 2011
