Is your life going as planned?

[Monkeyleg]

OK, I'll confess: it's 3:10 am, and I have nobody to talk to. Even the local greasey spoons are closed.

I've been re-reading old posts on THR, and I'm struck by the number of people who actually have some sort of plan for their lives: marriage, home, children, retirement, etc.

That concept is completely foreign to me. I guess I've always planned short-term.

In my early twenties, I was pretty much fixated on chasing skirts.

By my mid-twenties, I was trying to figure out what career I wanted to pursue.

By my early thirties, I was trying to best every other photographer in the area.

In my late thirties, I had my own studio, and was trying to figure out how to get more work than any other photographer.

In my early forties, I was trying to figure out how to make more profits than any photographers in the area.

By my late forties, I was just trying to figure out how to keep my hair.

Now? I'm just trying to figure out what the rest of my life and my wife's will be.

In 1992, I hired my second full-time assistant, Deen.

Deen didn't just have a plan for life: he had a blueprint. He told me that he was through with the dating game. He wanted to look for a potential wife. Qualifications: must be a virgin; must be employed in a field or studying in a field that will make good money; must want children (2 or 3, minimum); cannot be fat, or ever become fat; and must be quiet.

I told Deen he was nuts.

Well, he found a young woman who had never dated, was still living with her parents, was studying physical therapy at the medical college, wanted to have children, was slim (still is), and kept her mouth shut whenever he was around.

Once I joked with him that he, at age 32, probably already had bought burial plots.

He had.

I fully realize that the song lyric, "Live for Today," is pretty much branded  on the foreheads of the members of my generation.

But is that so bad?

Pretty much everyone I report to is in their thirties or forties, and their kids don't have time to be kids. Soccer practice is at 6:45, dance lessons at 8:00.

One of my bosses is a basketball-junkie. And every family vacation is scheduled around the national championships for fifth-grade basketball players. Fifth grade? Honest-to-God, they travel from WI to NC for this, and spend an entire week there.

I have a lot of work to do tomorrow (later this morning, actually). I don't know which task I'll take on first.

I've no idea what I'm going to eat tomorrow night, although pizza is always tops on my list.

Next month? Next year? Next decade? I haven't a clue. I could be dead, or I could be working in Nebraska (not much difference).

Where do all these plans come from?

[280plus]

Well my plan to take over the world and create an evil empire hasn't panned out so well yet. Bought the burial plots at uh,,,40 so I guess I'm not too far behind the curve.

[...has left the building.]

For the most part, yes it is going to plan. I'm 24 now and the next stage of the game is to get my MBA. I'll be starting that at Krannert at Purdue in January. After that, I'll try to get some kind of six-figure salary job in a progressive industry like IT or Internet. After paying down school and miscellaneous debt, I want to start my own real estate holding company on the side; probably starting with apartment buildings on or near major college campuses (just because that is a market I feel that I fully understand). Hopefully the holding company will lead into bigger and more profitable business ventures, if not, I'm content to make a good salary at work and also make the money from the apartment investments. If things go according to plan, I'll be very comfortable by 30 and have a small empire by 40. On the personal side, I'm already married to an awesome girl.

Of course, along the way, many things don't go to plan and I've had to adapt, sometimes drastically. My income went from very high to very low in a matter of months when the mortgage industry really slowed down in the past year or two. I had to make some drastic changes and now I'm a commercial banker and about to go for my MBA...so I had to roll with some pretty hard punches to get stabilized.

[280plus]

Actually, the only thing I ever planned was going in the Navy and then college. Other than that things pretty much took their own course. Especially the kids part. Kids'll change your plans quick. Especially if you weren't planning on them quite yet.

Yup, you adapt...

[The Rabbi]

My two kids are 13 and 11 and I had begun thinking about retiring and moving to someplace else, like Panama, maybe in 5-10 years.
Three weeks ago our second son was born.  Oops.
Sometimes plans just don't work out like you want.

[Iain]

Congratulations are in order though.

[Art Eatman]

Looking back from ge 72:  I never had any sort of detailed plan.

A lot of things were taken for granted as to a future:  College degree.  Marriage and kid or kids.  Decent job.  These weren't plans; they were what "our" approximately-middle-class people did.

I made lots of short-term plans; drive race cars, set up multi-year deals for hunting, that sort of thing.

I guess you could maybe call it a plan, but being debt-free of anything other than house/car was part of my looking at finances.  By developing mechanic's skills, cars got to be nearly-free.  Thirteen years ago, doing the labor of building my own house meant no house-debt.

My overall plan, through life, was to somehow manage my affairs such that in my old age I didn't have to give a dam about much of anything beyond myself.  I'd be free to enjoy a great wife and pretty doggoned good kid.  (Kid?  Okay, he's 43.)  Did that.

I noticed that reality has a way of affecting "plans".  Car wrecks, cancer, hurricanes, eminent domain, city growth.

Resiliency is a Good Thing.

Art

[roo_ster]

I have had plans in the past & continue to plan.

I also have the understanding that circumstances can change on a dime and to not be too enamored of a set path when opportunities and or roadblocks appear.

For instance, my plan in high school was:
1. Do well on the SAT & in school
2. Earn degree in a hefty, useful, employable major
3. Enter military & go for a career

#1 & #2 went as planned & I ended with a physics/history double major.  #3 was going well...until Newton's Third Law & the Law of Universal Gravitation intruded upon my skeletal structure and my my military career.

^^^That was a "roadblock," not an "opportunity."

Hokay, enter Plan B:
1. Recover from injuries, surgeries, & post-surgical infection (osteomyelitis).
2. Regain more leg function & walk again without a limp/shuffle/whatever.
3. Become gainfully employed in private sector (opportunity knocked)
4. Earn MBA.
5. Purchase house
6. Marry the right gal
7. Have children

No real roadblocks, yet, and an opportunity occurred for #s 5, 6, & 7 before completing #4, though all are now complete (except #7, which is currently in process with two successes).

The completion of Plan B has introduced other goals that will require planning to achieve:
1. Financial & familial security, especialy in case I am run over by a truck
2. A step upwards or sideways in career to put the MBA to use
3. A location more friendly to raising a family and allowing the kids to have fewer constraints on movement & activities

We (notice that after marriage it is a "we" thing, not a "me" thing) are currently in a holding pattern.  There are good reasons for this, however, and I don't see it as stagnation.  I am keeping my eyes open for any opportunities good enough to break us out of our holding pattern.  If none occur, I will more actively search for or create my own in order to achive our goals.

[Waitone]

Yeah, lots of plans then reality intrudes then assess then replan ad naurseum.

After a while you figger out you are not omnipotent nor are you the master of your destiny.  You can not dodge what life throws your way.  All you can do is shag the balls.  Yeah, plans are great and I've done my share of planning.  Reality is I spent far more time shagging balls and reacting.  I'm a much better man having done so.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

I have had plans in the past & continue to plan.

We (notice that after marriage it is a "we" thing, not a "me" thing) are currently in a holding pattern.  There are good reasons for this, however, and I don't see it as stagnation.  I am keeping my eyes open for any opportunities good enough to break us out of our holding pattern.  If none occur, I will more actively search for or create my own in order to achive our goals.

Ditto.

Yeah, lots of plans then reality intrudes then assess then replan ad naurseum.

After a while you figger out you are not omnipotent nor are you the master of your destiny.  You can not dodge what life throws your way.  All you can do is shag the balls.  Yeah, plans are great and I've done my share of planning.  Reality is I spent far more time shagging balls and reacting.  I'm a much better man having done so.

I'll ditto that, too.

I think it's part nature, and part nurture.  
If your parents/family have taught you to plan every step, you'll tend toward that.  Same if spontaneity has been modeled.  

Lots of things my parents never instructed me.
Lots of things for which I wish I'd had more of what Steve calls Mentors & Elders.

Without getting into real deep psychoanalysis paralysis, I guess I never "woke up" and "clued in" that *I* was captain of my ship until a long way into my adulthood.  

Partly from a desire to have been in on the spontaneity of the '60's, partly from lack of empowerment ("HEY, dammit -- children should be seen and not heard!!!"), I sort of had this Taoist, "go with the flow" mentality for a long time before really becoming more proactive and trying plan from here forward.  

If you're not getting what you want from life, change your approach.
Maybe time to make/change some plans?
Or, not.  YMMV.

[Shalako]

My plan in high school was to get into a great engineering college, gradute in 4 or 5 years, and be rich. All things would then magically appear (mercedes, wife, kids, mansion, resort vacations..etc.)

One problem I forgot to factor in: funding

So the plan went more like get into a great college, bumble along barely managing to stay off academic probation while working part time almost not affording life, leaving college without a degree, working in the pits of a tourist trade restaurant industry, transfering to a new college, gradutating with good grades (thanks student loans!), getting a job in a field I enjoy, finding a great wife, buying a modest house, and now hopefully having kids. (only 10 years behind schedule )

The rest of the 'new' plan is to enjoy what I've got and cherish any kids I am fortunate enough to get. Hopefully progress in my profession and work with good people along the way.

And that mercedes of my old dreams dreams can't touch my '95 Silverado of my reality. Life has a way of resculpting your value system I guess.

[crt360]

I have plans for certain things.  Most are business related.  I didn't plan my life.  I never saw an example so perfect that I wanted to duplicate it and I still don't know what I want to be.  I know what I would spend my time doing if I had enough money to quit my day job.  I would have gone insane by now if I had created a roadmap for life.  I probably would live somewhere I didn't like, work at a job I hated just because it met my salary requirement, be married to some mean, ugly woman because I set a definite date by which I should be married, and have kids I can't afford yet because mean, ugly woman had a plan to have X number of kids by the time she was X years old.  My life is not perfect, but at least I don't have a dismal future that is all but guaranteed.

[K Frame]

No, not really, but I don't really care.

When the initial line collapsed, I simply fell back 20 yards and made up a new play.

Have to say that while life isn't where I had thought it would be, I'm not really unhappy with my life as it is right now.

[Gewehr98]

That Deen guy irks me.  Let me know when he gets prostrate cancer, ok?  I'll have two fingers of Red Breast Irish Whiskey ready upon the news.

I have plans, too, but Divine Intervention seems intent on mangling them.

Marriage #1 was 6 years of learning to duck somebody with anger management issues.  

Divorce #1 followed shortly afterwards.  

I just retired from career #1, and the pension is nice, but not enough to live on.  At age 40, I'm entering career #2 as a deputy sheriff.  It should break up the monotony that's become my life. Maybe I'll have a few LawDog moments I can chuckle at.

In the meantime, I haven't figured out how to get two stepsons aged 24 and 27 out of my house and out into the job market.  They play World of Warcraft online, 24/7, and chain smoke inthe garage next to my reloading bench. Spouse #2 insists I'm being an ass in my motivational techniques, and I shouldn't make waves.  She was also a single mom for 17 years prior to my bumping into her, so of course she gave them everything they wanted, and then some, otherwise their father would've been successful in his custody battles. For all she cares, they can live here forever. One doesn't meddle with that, unless they're looking forward to Divorce #2.  We've already progressed to the "hallway sex" portion of our marriage.

I live life day by day now.  I don't keep my expectations high, that way, if something good happens, I'm pleasantly surprised.  If the Foo Bird drops a present on me, it's nothing new.  Not the best strategy, given, but it's working at present.  

[Monkeyleg]

Gewehr98, sounds like you have some problems to solve. Get the two "kids" out of the house, and soon. The only way my mother-in-law finally got her 49, 41 and 37 year-old sons out of the house was to sell it to one of them and move. They're still in the house.

I hope you were joking when you remarked that you Deen irks you. He's a great guy. His obsession with planning and, in particular, money has given him a comfortable lifestyle. But his fixation with his life plan is a bit quirky.

I guess planning isn't something that I'm good at. When I did the ground-up restoration on my XKE, my initial intent was to just pull the cylinder head to replace some worn valve guides, and do some other minor motor work. The project snowballed into a four-year epic.

I had dreamed of starting my own photo studio, but didn't plan on it. When I got canned in February of 1987, I had to formulate a plan quickly.

When I actually did plan something--my website--I did not anticipate the fact that calling gun store owners would be as time-consuming as it is. And, so, I've had to adapt.

My wife and I have had something of an informal plan to move down south. That plan changed after we had an unusually hot summer here in WI, and she realized that she couldn't tolerate lengthy periods of hot, humid weather. So, now what? Don't know. Maybe just more trips to New Orleans.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

HALLWAY SEX

Since I was among the ignorant, explanation follows:

The 1st kind of sex is Smurf Sex. This kind of sex happens when you
first meet someone and you both have sex until you are blue in the face.

The 2nd kind of sex is Kitchen Sex. This is when you have been with
your partner for a short time and you are so horny you will have sex
anywhere, even in the kitchen.

The 3rd kind of sex is Bedroom Sex. This is when you have been with
your partner for a long time. Your sex has gotten routine and you
usually have sex in your bedroom.

The 4th kind of sex is Hallway Sex. This is when you have been with
your partner for too long. When you pass each other in the hallway you
both say...."Screw You".

[280plus]

LOL... thanks fig, I was amongst the ignint myself...

[280plus]

Gewehr, Why not fly for the sheriff's dept? I happened to be in traffic court the day the flyboy coppers were acting as witnesses on traffic violations they had spotted in their planes. Sounded like an interesting job to me. I learned a lot about where not to speed in CT that day too.

[Lee]

Nope.  Serendipity Rules.  I would like to change everything and nothing about my life.

[Gewehr98]

I guess I shouldn't have mentioned Hallway Sex unless I spelled it out first, my bad.

There is also a fifth kind of sex: Courtroom Sex. This is when you get divorced and your wife screws you in front of everyone in the courtroom.

280Plus, I considered the sheriff's flight program.  But I'm also a fixed-wing guy, airspeed=lift, think B-52H and KC/RC/WC-135.  To me, helicopters, even the sheriff's versions, are like Texas trailer park moms - no visible means of support.  

I'm done flying for a while, unless somebody chooses to buy me, or I score enough cash to get, one of these beauties:

[Moondoggie]

My life is going much better than "planned".

I can't say that I had "a plan" in my younger days so much as I had 3 clearly defined goals:

1.  Be a U. S. Marine (I retired in '99 as an E-9, so I'd say that went well).

2.  Know God (I'm completely comfortable with my understanding of/position relative to God...I know as much as I'm going to know for the time being).

3.  Be in a mutually rewarding relationship with a woman.  (2nd marriage has been going on for 26 yrs now, I'm very comfortable that things are working well...get positive feedback from her frequently).

I took a detour from the Marines 78-86 (stayed in the Reserves) where I earned a BA and had a couple of really good jobs....except that I despised the backstabbing politicos that I had to put up with.  Going back on active duty and finishing out my 20 yrs of active duty was the best thing I ever did.

I never really had a goal to make X amount of money, of own X amount of stuff.  I inherited a mega hyperactive work ethic from both of my parents.  This is the primary factor that has put me in the comfortable financial position that I enjoy.  

I'm 53, empty nest, couple of grandkids, self-employed (18 wheeler independent O/O S-corp) at something that I really LOVE doing 3 whole days every week (Topeka to Chicago & back) and am financially waay ahead of where I ever thought I'd be.  Zero debt, no mortgage.  When my 83 yr old MIL passes on, wife and I will inherit a bunch of cash, in the neighborhood of $300K.

My primary concern is maintining my health so that I can stick around long enough to enjoy prosperity that I never thought I'd see.

[Northwoods]

Actually, the only thing I ever planned was going in the Navy and then college. Other than that things pretty much took their own course. Especially the kids part. Kids'll change your plans quick. Especially if you weren't planning on them quite yet.

Ain't' that the truth.  My wife and had planned on starting to think about having kids about three-six years from now.  Our daughter turned 2 back in April, and our son was born in May.

Except for the kids part, my life is pretty much going to the plan layed out in HS.  Only thing is, I'm getting increasingly disillusioned with my plan.  I'm working as a structural analyst, but every time I really think about it I get less and less happy with my choice of career.  I can't complain about the pay and bennies, nor really the hours.  It's more like I just don't have a passion for it.  I chose that track because it has good security (few are good enough, fewer like it enough to stick with it, plus being on the defense side means the job can't be exported) and pays better than a lot of other mechanical engineering type jobs.  My biggest problem with changing, though, is that with a wife still in school (the kids kinda wrecked her schedule for graduation) and 2 kids to support it's tough to leave a job like that for some unknown.  I dunno, maybe I just need to get more involved in some other aspect of the job.  That or chuck engineering entirely.  One of these days I'll figure that out.

[280plus]

These guys were fixed wing G... They spent most of their day timing how fast a car got from one stripe to another and radioing down to the guys on the ground when the cauht one. So if you happen to know somewhere where there are these strange white stripes across the highway one after the other for what looks like no particular reason,,, SLOW DOWN!!

[Maser]

Well, even though i'm still young I figure my life has gone pretty much as planned.  I'm just glad I will never have to re-live my horrible childhood again.  I knew since I was about 11 or 12 that my girlfriend and I were going to have a kid when we were still young and that I would have a decent job and so far that plan has worked out just fine.  In fact I am doing so well finacialwise that I could actually support another kid quite easily.  My main plan now is to just get through high school so I can get a better job.

[280plus]

Hey maser, can't sleep again? Sometimes I get up around this time and stay up about an hour.

Gewehr- nice plane BTW...