Planning

Planning is a human behavioral adaptation. Increasing lifespan, brain development and technology make planning a central life-extending and health-promoting skill. However, like any behavior, planning can become compulsive in an addictive sense. It can become a defense against reality. Defending against personal and physical reality is not adaptive. It is self-defeating in the long run.

I can plan compulsively all I want, but that will not change my genetic realities or fend off the inevitable happenstances of life. Conversely, I can live life as a free spirit and do no planning. This may make me a joyful person when life is good but it can lead to disaster when life is bad. The free spirit can lead a seismic existence, bouncing from good fortune to destitution. This has the net effect of making the free spirit actually feel like a slave to circumstance.

Being an obsessive-compulsive free spirit is a challenge, if not an impossibility. My own practice in life has brought me to this conundrum. How do I responsibly plan for the inevitable circumstances of disease, aging and death while living life with an open and flexible mind? Good question. No pat answer.

Planning must be part of the changing process of living day to day to be useful. Inflexibility is the enemy of creativity. Creativity, I strongly believe, is the keystone of mental and physical survival with ongoing growth through hardship. So I see my plans as exquisite sand castles along my way on life's beach. The tide may sweep them away. I may stomp them flat to begin again. In any case, I am the creator of the plans. I am the destroyer and the builder.

If routines and plans control me, I am no longer free. However, if my routines and plans serve my health and happiness, I am free, no matter how mundane my life may seem to others. Being the master of my plans means being able to start from scratch at a moment's notice. Life is full of momentary notices. It is best to plan for them.