Planning or openness?

    The start of the new year is a great time for thinking ahead and planning in advance. After all, we should plan out our lives; structure is important. We know this well. We’ve been taught this since we were young, and find this concept - planning for the future - reinforced in quotes from a wide range of sources:

    “Plan for the future because that’s where you are going to spend the rest of your life.” – Mark Twain

    “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” -Benjamin Franklin

    “He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.” -Victor Hugo

    “Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it? If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you’re going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: ‘He started something he couldn’t finish." - The Gospel of Luke 14, Bible

    “Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind.” -Proverbs 21, Bible.

    But, on the other hand…

    The start of the new year is a great time to stay grounded in the present moment and trust that the future will take care of itself. We shouldn’t plan too much - staying open is important. We know this well. We’ve been taught this since we were young, and find this concept - staying open to the future - reinforced in quotes from a wide range of sources:

    “The best laid plans of mice and men/ often go awry” - Robert Burns

    “I'm not making any plans. I'm just going to let the universe surprise me.” - John Cusack

    “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” - John Steinbeck

    “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu

    “ And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.” - James 4, Bible

    “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” -The Gospel of Matthew 6, Bible.

    So… which is it, then? Planning or openness? It seems that it’s possible to make a compelling case for either side of the spectrum, depending on which authors you read or scriptures you survey. In fact, the more I read about either of these two perspectives, the stronger the case for both of them appears to be. And yet, they can’t coexist… can they?

    Add into this dilemma the fact that we all naturally lean towards one end of the spectrum or the other. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - a commonly used and well-respected means of discerning what our psychological preferences are - breaks down the way we perceive and interact with the world into four basic categories, one of which is whether we value structure or openness more. It makes no value judgement as to which end of the spectrum is better or worse, but it does help us understand that we all have a natural bias of some degree.

    We prefer to polarize our options. Either/or, for/against, yes/no. Binary options are enticing, and yet they often fail to capture the complexity of the choices. Simple choices, whether they be moral, financial, or relational, rarely exist. If you’re looking for a clear-cut opinion as to which is the better choice - planning for the future or staying open to possibility - this article is not going to help you. Sorry to tell you that now, when you’ve made it through almost to the end. But the truth is that this dilemma is not an either/or proposition (both choices live together and can’t be pulled apart completely), and it’s also not both/and (the two choices are, in many ways, mutually exclusive).

    Let’s call it an Either/And paradox.

    By embracing the fact that it’s a paradox, unable to be completely unraveled or understood, it allows us to step back, take a breath, and not feel the burden of choice, of having to decide which is better. Of course planning is important. So is staying open. But the most important question is this: are my hands open? Am I willing to let God place plans, structure and systems into my world if that’s his choosing? And am I willing to let him take from my open hands anything which might be holding me back from taking a risk, seizing the moment, and grabbing an opportunity which might not make the most sense but strikes a chord that resonates deep within my truest self?

    Ok. So I’m standing, hands open, ready to receive or give, to make wise plans and to take foolish risks. Now what?

     Here’s a few practical steps you can take to find the best blend of planning and openness in your life:

    1. Discover yourself. Take a personality test (the Meyers-Briggs might be a good place to start, but there are many different options available). Look at the way you make decisions, and learn from it. You have a uniquely beautiful way of resolving this Either/And paradox. Do you know what it is? Knowing what your natural preferences are helps you account for inbuilt bias in one direction or another.

    2. Experiment. Your teens and 20’s are an excellent time to try out new experiences, discovering along the way what works and (of equal importance) what doesn’t. Do you schedule your day in five-minute increments? Maybe try doing something impulsive, see how it feels. Does a calendar interest you only for the pictures? Try doing something at the same time every day for a week and observe how you react. Practice with small decisions, so that when the big ones come - career, marriage, family - you have already laid some groundwork. As you weigh the balance between making decisions of the mind or of the heart, write down what you do, and how or why you decided to do it that way. This will be invaluable in later years, as you’ll be able to look back and learn from both your mistakes and your successes.

    3. Create your own unique blend. As you discover yourself, and begin to experiment with the decision-making process to discover what works best for you, you’ll most likely begin to see healthy patterns emerge and rise to the surface. As you do, make note of them, but keep them held loosely in open hands. We need to adapt constantly to our changing environment, and different times in life require different processes to resolve them. But don’t be afraid to develop a decision-making process than can be an anchor to hold on to and guide you through stormy patches of life.

    The start of the new year is a great time for planning ahead. It’s also a great time to stay grounded in the moment, trusting the future to take care of itself. As you embrace the Either/And nature of this paradox, take comfort in this promise:

    “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30, Bible.

    Listen for the voice of God directing you in your plans. Listen for him in your openness and availability. He will always guide you into Good.

    Have a very blessed 2015!

Patrick Noonan, staff worker at "The Navigators"