Paperback Plans: The Doer vs The Planner vs Me

 

The truth is that I'm a pseudo-planner. I find calm in planning things. I take my time writing down plans for next month's budget, next year's travels, tomorrow's to-dos. I even remember writing a 10-year career plan as soon as I graduated college, on my organizer. I left it in the Philippines so I bet if my mother finds it, she'll be surprised at how far I've walked down my future's lane. I remember specifying the goals for each plan and putting arrows for alternatives, say if things don't work out the way it should. It was too extravagant. Too far-off.

But then again, I'm a pseudo-planner, if there ever such a thing. In fact, I'm a pro at it. I fake-plan things. I plan only to find that calm in planning, the relief in knowing, the happiness in seeing my dreams in ink on a page of my good ol' journal. Because seeing them in writing makes them a little bit more tangible, at easier grasp. Though most of them, if not all, never really materialize because...

Come tomorrow, after pouring myself over my plans' intricacies, I wake up leaving everything on that page. I can imagine the words I wrote and the ink I used cursing me for wasting them. But most often than not, it's myself I feel sorry for. Why do I waste my time in this planning when I never really do anything to realize them? What irrational voice in my head convinces me that doing things end in writing them down on a piece of paper and anticipation?

As I might have already revealed in this blog, I'm not the most optimistic, driven, idealistic person in the world. When I run into people who are so adept and keen on "doing things" instead of "thinking things", I feel a tinge of envy. And then I ask myself: Am I really a rational thinker or am I just plainly lazy? Or am I just horridly afraid of taking risks. I rationalize by saying yes, I'm a rational thinker. I think things through before plunging into it. But who am I kidding? Most days, I'm just terribly lazy. Other times, I'm thinking of the worst possible scenario. So I take a step back or forget all about it, the easiest way out. Yes, that's me. The pro-pseudo-planner. 

Today I read in Facebook:

 "If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, 

you'll probably never do much of anything.

- Win Borden

Now this is a wisdom I need to realize. Because if not, my plans will remain as they are, just plans. And I refuse to be one of those people who never went out of the comfort zones and planning, as it turns out, is just my comfort zone.

But the questions remains: Where do I start the doing? And stop the planning? Sigh. I wish answering this was as easy as writing down one of my plans.