5-Year Plans

Hmmm . . . 

I’m starting to feel worried that I don’t have a solid 5-year plan.  I can hear myself saying to Matt everyone once-in-awhile, “Hey, we should really sit down and hash out a 5-year plan.”  The thing is, it never works.  The conversation usually ends before it begins with us telling ourselves that it’s too hard to plan that far ahead, as things will change anyway.  We seem to think in smaller chunks, usually working toward goals on a one-to-two year range.  Besides, as I mentioned before, four is apparently our number.  I’m coming to realize that the real reason I keep bringing it up is because of the pressure!  You hear it all the time – have a five-year plan.  What’s your five-year plan?  Pressure.  Pressure.  Pressure.  I was thrilled to find I’m not alone when a good friend told me she thinks 5-year plans are just conversation filler.  On the dating scene, she gets asked this question quite a bit when there’s not much else to talk about.  She was downright harassed by one date who felt that, “she must have a 5-year plan, doesn’t she have any GOALS?!?”  This, at a time when she had just returned from spending a year abroad, a life-time goal of hers. 

So I feel better that I’m not alone, but have to confess that I could barely admit it in writing when I started this post.  I have to learn to accept that it is something that is important for many people, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a must for me.   As we head into Beansprout’s preschool years, I see us forming some longer-term plans, goals that will have to be flexible.  Life has a way of surprising us sometimes.

What’s your take on the 5-year plan?  What works best for you?  Are there other things you feel like you should be doing in life but aren’t, you know, because of the pressure?