Life

Not-Planning

So, how's that plan coming along? All working out? Doing good?

After my venture to Taiwan and not planning anything for that trip. I feel that "no planning" is a good fit for me. I hate planning, I always have, it just sucks. When I plan, I generally don't do the plan, then feel frustrated about it and think I've got to go all Tony Robbins on it to make it a must, a have to, an insatiable need to get the plan going to reach the final goal and be happy and fulfilled.

"Find your desire for it to happen and it will happen," the self-improvement guru's cry. Baloney. "Visualize every last detail of what you want and it will come true," Not for me. Exception: If I desire eating pizza. Now, granted, that is a plan I can make happen. Easy. I love pizza, I want a pizza, call 'em up the phone, order it and go pick it up. Bring it home and BAM! I'm eating pizza. Did I have to sit down and plan it? Hell no.

As a gift and experiment to myself, I'm not planning anything else. Life is going to happen. Whatever shows up spontaneously in the moment is where I'm at. If someone calls up and says they have a plan -- good -- let them do the planning since I suck at it. The friends are going to all meet on Saturday for dinner? I'm there! Going to go glider flying in June, my idea. Am I going to plan it? No. Just going to tell everyone when and where and I'm done. "Do you know where your life is headed and how you're going to get there?" Been there, tried that, not for me.

But how can you live life without a plan?
How do you know where you're going to live?
How will you know where your money is coming from?
How will you create your future?


Don't know, don't care.

It's been said that in life you should discover your unique talents. I have no talent at planning, none of my plans that I've ever drawn up have come to fruition. Never have a I basked in the glory of having a plan that turned out in any way close to what I envisioned. My other friends who plan only complain about how said plan didn't go according to plan and how pissed off they are that "nothing is going according to plan!"

Try living in the now instead.

Since I've been playing with the "No-Plan Lifestyle Design" TM  I've been feeling great, having amazing experiences, doing wonderful things with wonderful people and living in the moment. It feels so natural and effortless. I feel more like I'm me being me. I've told all my friends and family that I am not going to plan anything anymore, so don't ask me if I know what I'm doing. I don't have a clue and it's awesome.

If anything I've written here isn't clear, let me state it again. I'm letting planning go. I didn't even plan to write this column on planning, it just showed up here without me doing anything. Cool.

If you would like a sink fixed, call the plumber. If you care to serve a fifty-place table setting for a wedding, call the caterer. If you want a broken leg fixed, call the doctor. If you need chairs, forks, shirts, advertising, movies, or anything in the entire world designed, I got your back. If you know a head case and need a psychologically adjusted human, I'm all about it. If you have a problem playing guitar, I can help.

If you want a plan -- don't call me -- call the planner.

There's a problem that there are too many problems.

Is it possible that there are no problems. That we as humans create problems, and then try to solve ourselves out of the mess we just made.

I keep hearing designers talking about solving problems. There's a problem with the way chairs are made. spoons just don't work quite right, there is a problem with the way communication, phones, the internet, talking with your buddies work. There is a problem with making the world work in a more harmonious way. There seem to be millions of problems people are trying to solve everyday, and when those get solved, there are millions more that show up the next day to be fixed.

What exactly is a problem? What makes it a problem? and why does this problem need to be fixed?
Better yet, here's an idea that I recently got exposed to...

There are no problems.

Wha? Come again? What do you mean there are no problems?

That's the idea.

Is it possible that there is nothing to be fixed, changed, corrected, modified, adjusted, recreated or solved? Is all of this our own making? Do we as human beings use our minds to create problems that are not really there, only for us to have something to do because we're not hunting down a wild boar dinner anymore?

If there were no challenges, nothing to fix, nothing to improve or change, would life just be boring? Maybe if we knew there were no problems, that's we create them all and just need something fun to do in life, that would better?

Oh right, I'm trying to create a problem here aren't I?