It is a difficult thing to think forward, to prepare for something in the future that you are not aware will be available for you in the future. However, planning for the future is key. You should never simply just let life happen to you, nor just let something happen in general.
Planning is key.
Sometimes we do not want to adopt the long-term five-year and/or ten-year plan. The reasons we use to justify this decision are simply based on this notion of “living for the day,” i.e., carpe diem.
The problem with this logic, however, is that the people who love to live for the day in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are usually the people who have to come and live with you in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Let’s not even think about taking care of them in their 80s and 90s, if they make it that far.
What they failed to do in their 20s and 30s reveals itself in their 40s and 50s. In other words, if you are still struggling with keeping a job or housing in your 40s and 50s, then you struggled with this idea in your 20s and 30s.
I think if we had a better understanding of planning while we were in high school, we would be less likely to find trouble in our 20s and 30s. It is in high school where two-year planning is key because there is the expectation of graduation, i.e., leaving from one environment and entering another. It makes no sense to believe that remaining in high school is a perpetual notion. We have to exit so room and space are made for newcomers and new life learners.
Of course, we do not plan.
We do not plan at the junior year of high school, thinking and believing that whatever will happen with us or to us will just happen without much effort. I did not truly plan while in high school, even though ironically I carried a planner. I thought I was going to get my paper, i.e., the diploma, and enter the military. When that didn’t work out, I had no plan for anything else, which made it easier to get into trouble and/or be distracted. I ended up getting into life-threatening situations a good four to five years out of high school until I was forced to wake up. I got back on track by enrolling in college, relocating to San Diego, CA, attending San Diego State University, enduring those fun times, but still graduating without a solid plan.
Sure, I understood early that if I wanted to teach at the community college level that a master’s degree in English was necessary. Therefore, the decision to exit undergraduate into graduate school was an easy one. I didn’t have to think about that decision. It made sense. I reasoned at the time that I did not have children, nor was I married. If I was going to get the master’s degree, the time when I did not have family responsibilities was ideal to get the degree and prepare to enter the field of teaching.
I remember doing much better at the graduate level as far as learning and preparing and planning. I made sure I completed my master’s thesis a semester before graduating because I did not want issues with graduation. I planned my thesis. I did all the learning-based things in graduate school that I should have done at the undergraduate level. However, I did not plan my transition out of graduate school. I did not apply to jobs. I just assumed, as I did in high school, that I would get into a doctoral program and that would be it.
I did not, and I did not have a plan.
In other words, I still hadn’t learned anything from previous failures at two-year planning. It wasn’t until I had to endure homelessness due to losing work during the financial recession and watch homeless people struggle to catch their rhythm again that I realized just how important two-year life planning is. It also wasn’t until I had to teach this topic to my previous students and watch them have a better sense at planning, while I was in my late 30s, that I realize where I had gone wrong and where I needed to do better in life.
It doesn’t matter what kind of money you have, what kind of job you have, what kind of elite background you come from, we can all benefit from two-year planning whether that planning is necessary to move from one economic station to another, from one job level to another, from one academic status to another, and simply from one season in life to another.
Two-year planning is a necessary strategy to prevent you from taking anything simply because anything is available.
Regina Y. Favors
Two-year planning is a necessary strategy to prevent you from taking anything simply because anything is available. That is the worse thing you can do is fall into a trap of running around on a hamster’s wheel. You are getting somewhere but nowhere at the same time.
Take head. Take this to heart. Plan your transitions. Plan your exit from one season in your life to another. Exit from one place to another is always inevitable. Since we know we have to exit, then we need to be sure that there is a true plan in place so that we are not bogged down with frustration, fear, distractions, and general anxiety about what to do next.
Here is a quick audio lesson from my life planning series. Take some time to view it and gain insight on the importance of planning.
Thank you for visiting.
Regina Y. Favors 