Planning: Getting Ahead of Ourselves
As is true for me each Sunday evening--but perhaps more so at the beginning of a new year or the start of each month--I begin planning. Not only do I plan for the week ahead, but I map out my monthly goals. Most of what I plan influences those closest to me because of the roles I play. The majority of these tasks are words, abbreviations, and phrases only I understand. If I failed to get most of them done, I doubt there would be a catastrophic result. In truth, the main tasks I ought to check off today center around necessary yet menial objectives such as cleaning the bathrooms, doing the laundry, vacuuming up pet hair, and ordering groceries for the week.
Yet, even as I know this and knew it last night, there sat my planner with its weekly spread. I leaned over it with an intensity that did nothing to relieve the ache that had been radiating through my head, neck, and shoulders for the past three days. Although, I was enjoying myself. Another tension was relieving itself--the one that happens when I have a jumbled list in my mind and little to no confidence in how it will all get done before noon the next day.
And why, I ask myself, does it have to be done by noon? Of course, it doesn't and rarely does. Still, this is the personal pressure I put on myself.
About this time, my husband walked into my office.
"What are you doing?"
"Planning."
"Do you know what you're doing tomorrow?"
I chuckled. "Almost."
He left the room. A while later, he came back.
"What are you doing?"
"Planning."
"Do you know what you're doing tomorrow?"
I chuckled again. "Almost."
He started to leave, and I said, "Did you want me to spend time with you?"
I think he shrugged his shoulders. Or did he give an affirmative grunt? When I'm planning, I do try to listen. Although I had asked him a question, in my extreme focus, I don't remember his actual response. Maybe he asked me again, "Do you know what you're doing tomorrow?" Either way, he left the room.
Then I knew. I scrawled out a few more notes, closed the planner, and left my office.
"I know what I'm doing tomorrow," I said, striding into the family room with enthusiastic triumph. He glanced away from the football game. "And thank you for giving me the topic for my blog post."
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”