I have always taken pride on how decisive and prepared I am. As an overthinker, I have developed a habit of getting multiple plans ready for a certain situation. Major or minor, I always structured plans and back-up plans. Even my daily routine was structured as a student. I was told a lot of times how I can save presentations and groupwork even at the last minute. Yeah, your typical geek.
But lately, I can't see that pride anymore. I find it very hard to even recognize my goals at all. Let alone make plans. It's as if every day I am stuck in a loop which I don't care about anymore. I have a lot of flashbacks, and all I could see is that my unhappiness has been bestowed by myself.
I want to trace back my decisions in life, to find where I went wrong, or what I could have done differently. Did I fail to foresee this kind of emptiness when I was standing on those various choice nodes? Did I not avoid the unhappiness for the sake of something else? If I have always taken pride on my preparedness, why am I so unprepared now?
In reality, most of my plans and backup plans were just tools to convince myself that I put in a lot of effort. Oftentimes, people don't really appreciate no matter how prepared I was. People won't ask me how many plans I have or how am I going to deal with a hypothetical problem. They just need me to act on one plan, and deal just-in-time in case problems arise. That's the truth.
So, after some reflection, I realized that resilience and resourcefulness are more valued skills than foresight and the ability to make detailed plans and simulations which will all eventually become useless except for one.
Backup plans only work when the main plan messes up early, such as when the microphone fails during an event, so we initiate some choral activity from the audience to keep the event banging. I realized that most life decisions drill down deep into our lives that, when they fuck up, it's probably too late to go back.
What we can do is to redirect ourselves, salvage what's left, or continue walking ahead in hope of a plot twist. Whichever of those, we make the point where we stand a choice node. From this choice node, we spring branches, and make some "What if"s.
This pandemic has caused me a lot of thinking. I used to have plans on everything, but now, I'm too tired to even think about what here is to plan for. When I built this blogsite last year, I laid a whole damn calendar with a Gantt chart of milestones. I even started a fishbowl of ideas to draw-roulette in case I run out of ideas. I had dates when I would post specific topics, which all passed and didn't happen. The blog should have coincided with busy season, yes, and I had that planned as well.
Yes, none of these things happened. Everyone was trying to cope up—there were those who started selling, trading, cooking, learning an instrument, reading books, painting, etc. I plunged into a dark phase of my life which rendered me worthless and unprofessional. I only started blogging when everyone else was already hopping to other activities, because I was too busy figuring out what went wrong in my life.
But I realized that, if other people actually got through big challenges without having overthought plan bibles, why can't I?
You know what, I realized something—I failed to start.
One disadvantage of trying to foresee as much scenarios as possible is the sacrifice of the thrill of them. In a certain situation or choice node, I am filled with a lot of plans to draw out at the trigger of certain factors. In reality, it stole from me a lot of thrills, only for me to stand always anxious and alert of what's to come. Yes, when I plan, I am confident on myself that I can pull it through, always, because I have simulated all of these things in my mind before I step foot on unknown land.
But if I keep spending time on detailing all possibilities, and eventually I have to choose one and archive everything else, what a waste of time. It took so much time that I actually lost interest along the process.
That's why my daily routines before didn't work out the way I wanted them to. I was too focused on going by the book. I forgot to value discovery, endurance, resilience, and creative thinking.
Even now, I cannot let go of my backup plan attitude. Of course, there is no need to let go. I still need to create backup plans because that's my way of life. But, at least, I don't write too much about them anymore.
I'm trying not to set specific choice nodes, and began treating almost all situations of my life as choice nodes. This means that the number of choice nodes in my life has infinitely bloated in number, which forced me to stop thinking about every single one of them. It's like playing a dating sim or any simulation game, which has specific events where choices appear (you'll know when you replay them). That, I dropped them, and broken down those major choice nodes into interim ones that would make the choice nodes in the game like spam. We usually ignore spam.
That's quite stressful, but liberating. When nothing goes according to plan, maybe the plan is too static. Stretch the plan. Be flexible. Just start something. Wherever you are is a choice node. Even if you make bad decisions, there will always be another choice node waiting ahead. You'll have infinite decision-making events to build your life. Even if you plunge down somewhere with no walking back, you can always settle and wait, or walk ahead, or tread a new path.
If you get sick of the plan, drop it. You'll never know what new things you can discover even with your reckless choices.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
—Robert Frost
I don't know if this will come helpful to you.
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