Planner

No, I'm not talking about the little notebook you may have to schedule your week.  I am talking about a personality trait.  I am talking about a trait I posses.  I am very much, what I like to call, "A recovering planner."  My life consisted of me planning things out: from day to day things, to what time I need to be on the road and back home again, to entire vacations.  Now, I am not saying this is a bad thing.  I still do some of these things.  What I am about to write about is what I have learned by loosening the reigns on my "I need to plan everything attitude."

I'm going to talk about why I wanted to plan out vacations.  I would get excited about where my husband and I would go.  I would research and say to myself, "This looks fun, so does that, and Ooo!  We would love this!"  Then upon arrival, we would be on a time schedule.  We would have fun, but always seemed too conscious of our watches.  When I was little, my family and I took two trips every year.  We went to the mountains and went camping and fishing, and we would go to the ocean and spend a few days there.  A lot of the times, we did the same things and went to the same places.  This was not at all a drag.  We would have so much fun that we would look forward to going back the next year and doing those same things.  I have very fond memories of those times.  I think it's great to revisit places when you have kids because the whole family gets to see and spend time doing things you all love.  It's like a tradition.  Now, how this affected me was that as I got older, I wanted to plan everything.  Now, my husband is not much of a planner.  As he is reading this, I can see him smiling about what on Earth I am going to write next.  Although I liked to plan most of our special outings and activities, he was the one who gently suggested that we only plan the first two days of our honeymoon and just see where the road takes on the rest.  This was very exciting to me and a little nerve wracking.  I was nervous about the following, "What if we don't find a place to stay one night?" etc...  I am happy to report that it was the BEST trip!  We got to go places, see things, find activities that we would have never found if it was a planned trip.  I loved it!  I have been trying to incorporate this practice and idea into my life.

You may be asking yourself, "You can't just not plan for the rest of your life!"  You would be absolutely right.  There are some things that are very important to plan, such as: retirement, money management, all those important things that have to do with health and survival.  I am very grateful for, what I like to call, my "planning trait".  There were things I planned that I wanted to complete which I did, such as, graduating high school, going to college, getting a job while both in high school and college,  getting my diploma, living in an area I love.  I have done all these things (and then some).  I was going to write, "Marry a good man," but even a planner should know that is something you really can't plan... even if you want to!  But, I can scratch that one off my list, too. 

Different people are planners for different reasons.  In my last blog post, you learned that I have Social Anxiety Disorder.  I have learned that people with anxiety often times like to be prepared for what comes their way, but more so than a person who doesn't suffer from anxiety.  I am trying to learn and cultivate a way of life that lets me, again, loosen the reigns on my planning, and let life happen.  I am trying to not feel like I have control over things which I don't.  I am trying to find a healthy balance where I can try to prepare for whatever life may bring and not try to plan it.  With that thought, I must also understand that there are some things I will not be able to prepare for, and when those things happen, I must remember that I will still be okay.

Wish me luck....

Happy Tuesday to you and yours...