The Myth of the Ten-year Plan

"Where was that in your ten-year plan?", asks CJ.

He's referring to a slightly surreal evening I'd had with a couple of friends. That, and the fact that we exchange emails pretty much daily but have never met.

This weekend TW comes to stay with me. We have worked together in the past but her current job with our mutual employer means I haven't seen her for months. It was lovely to catch up and give voice to all our frustrations with work.

She's recently finished her MBA and now she's starting to wonder "what's next".

Also joining us for the afternoon is M. She's having a rough time at the moment and any plans she might have had are up in the air. Her mind is racing ahead at a time when she can only really deal with the immediate future.

Unaware of these conversation TD circulates an ironic and funny, yet sobering cartoon on a similar theme. He's feeling it too.

And today, AB, another friend says on Twitter that he's thinking about life plans.

We vary in age, background, occupation, skills, and marital status.

Yet we're all asking more-or-less the same thing.

I consider, yet again, my plans...immediate, medium and long-term.

A few "appointments" over the next few days...all by choice.
A holiday split between Scotland and Cornwall next month.
An unfolding project at work which may or may not continue. Interesting enough, but it's only work and, therefore, unlikely to be all consuming.

Long term?

Nothing.

No idea.

No dreams.

No aspirations.

No plans.

Is that a bad thing?

Sometimes, yes. It gives me nothing major to plan for, to work towards. Gives me no sense of forward motion, of purpose.

On the other hand it does help me appreciate the now...

A spontaneous walk in the woods with cameras and a dog

Drinking far too much really good gin, chatting about everything under the sun and looking at a book of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs.

Sitting on the back step early in the morning, in the sun, with my netbook and a coffee.

The option to go to the zoo for an hour to take pictures of butterflies.

A bacon sandwich, a coffee and a bicker with a good friend.

Good times spent with a variety of pals in the furtherance of nothing much, other than deepening our friendships.

Surely that can't be bad...




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