Last night we watched one of our favorite TV shows, Life. There was a new character in this episode. She was a super driven detective that had a 15 year plan to become Mayor of Los Angeles. The plan involved becoming a lawyer then a detective then the chief of police and then the mayor.
My first thought was WOW, that’s so crazy. Who (A) wakes up one day and says “hmmm, I’d like to be mayor of LA one day. How do I do that?”, then (B) puts together a plan to do it and then (C) follows through on it?!
It struck me as simultaneously bold, arrogant, courageous and fascinating.
And it got me thinking…
What do I want in life? Should I put together a 15 year plan? If I did, what would that plan look like? How does one know, really truly know what one is supposed to be, supposed to do? Do I only want to have a 15 year plan so that I have an excuse to write a list?
I am intrigued by the idea and part of me really wants to sit down and figure it out and come up with a 15 year plan to achieve it. What would the next 15 years look like if I sat down and planned it out and then followed through on those plans?
Then another part of me slaps my brain and says “no way, jose”. It feels extremely presumptive to set up a plan and then set about to achieve it. Like if I say “I want to be this and do this” that I am then automatically doomed to fail at that thing and that people will think I’m arrogant and full of myself to think that I could achieve it. Or if I don’t achieve it I will be considered a failure.
It’s not that I don’t have a vague idea of where I’d like to end up and what I’d like to do along the way but I’ve never really thought about how exactly to get there. And I guess I’ve always just thought that if it’s meant to be it will be. Kind of an “if God opens a door, I’ll walk through it” mentality.
As I reread that paragraph a thought struck me that it seems like I want God to spoon feed me life. Hmmm…
This character got me thinking even more deeply about something that I’d already been mentally chewing on as I’m in the process of enrolling to go to summer school (go to isn’t quite the word as most of the classes will be online) and the degree that I’ve decided to pursue is quite different from the one that I had originally planned on. (wow…that was one long sentence!) However, that’s a story for another post.
What do you think? Are 15 year plans a good thing or a bad thing? Do you have a life plan? How did you come to it? Or are you more of a take it one day at a time person?
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"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; whereas you do not know what [will happen] tomorrow. For what [is] your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you [ought] to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'"
James 4:13-15
"There are many plans in a man's heart, Nevertheless the LORD's counsel--that will stand."
Proverbs 19:21
I was going to say more, but I think His word is better. . .hope this helps :0)
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