** This is a post I wrote for www.godesignhappy.com which is my girlfriend Dallas’ website. Please enjoy **
Plans are tricky things. You can spend quite a long time planning how things should go but it often seems that at the first opportunity life seems to throw something in to disrupt your carefully crafted plan. I have been thinking about plans or lack thereof a lot lately. You see, I was laid off one week before Christmas. At the beginning of the week I had a feeling it was coming but I did not actually think it would happen, or perhaps I did. It all felt so strange. I had a plan for the way I thought things would go and all of a sudden that plan had be indelibly ruined.
It seems that December was a month of changing plans. At the beginning of the month I became involved with a beautiful girl. I had not been too seriously looking for a relationship but it seems that’s when the most wonderful ones spring up. My December bore no resemblance to the one I had imagined I would have even a few days earlier. Everything seemed to be going well and then I was forced to join the ranks of the unemployed.
Once I was laid off I made a plan that I would begin blogging and find a new job in a few weeks and everything would be right as rain. Boy was I was wrong. I did begin a new website, you can find it here, but it seems finding new gainful employment is more difficult than I expected. I have been searching and networking for going on three months now and have had very little luck. Don’t get me wrong not working is pretty awesome, not having work every day is very freeing, but that gets old fast. When the majority of your friends have jobs it can get pretty lonely.
Since most of my friends have jobs they have a hard time sympathizing with my plight. A notable exception though is my girlfriend (the proprietor of this website), she unfortunately is also laid off. So predictably we end up spending a good amount of time together. It’s been great for the relationship but still work would amazing. I have digressed back to ruminating on plans.
While plans are rarely followed to a T there is still a use to making them. Since I have been laid off and much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, I have not made schedules and plans for each of my days. When I was working the majority of my daylight ours where devoted to work so that portion of my day was planned for me 5 days a week. Now with no gainful employment my days are wide open, and I not being the most disciplined person with my time have squandered much of it. Now I have endeavored to make more plans and more importantly goals. Without plans and goals it is easy to float through life. Its easy to lose sight of the big picture. Don’t get me wrong it is useful to cast aside ones plans and live free every once in a while. But plans provide structure and give one hope and a since of accomplishment when quantifiable goals are reached, and when you are laid off and close to losing hope anything that gives you a feeling of accomplishment is a good thing. So to sum up plans are important but be prepared for the unexpected and often times the the things you don’t expect are the best things in life.
