Random Thoughts Thursday part 12

I can remember a few times in my life when someone has asked me, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" The first time was from an essay question when applying to college. The next time was for a job interview. Recently, I was clearing out some old papers and found my college essay. I was pretty accurate with my predictions, but at age 17, it is not too difficult to predict that you will finish college and get a job... if you set your mind to it and stay focused. I did not, however, predict getting married at 19 and moving 2000 miles away from my hometown. I DID get that college degree and job, though! hahaha...it was just in a completely different field of study from where I started! Beyond the age of early adulthood, do you really think about where you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 20?

Early in my marriage, I thought I had a game plan for where my husband and I would end up during retirement. Six years post-divorce, and those plans are almost laughable now. Life has CERTAINLY taken MANY unexpected twists and turns all along the way, but is this such a bad thing?

Plans, plans and more plans

I am a planner by nature. Plans make me feel organized, secure, and confident when I want to get something done, but there are many moments when I am flying by the seat of my pants and making stuff up as I go along. That sort of spontaneity can really get my blood flowing. I think "planned spontaneity" can also be a cool tool. (Chuckles) Does that sound like an oxymoron? Allow me to explain.

They say, "Life Happens While You Are Making Other Plans." (by Allen Saunders) For this reason, I think it is important to train your adaptability skills... and I often "plan" a little controlled chaos in my life to help myself learn to just go with the flow every now and then or to get in a tad bit of trouble just to see if I can get out of it again. I know what you are thinking. Give us the specifics. Examples?

Organized Chaos

Well, recently, I was on the phone with my mother, and I was bored with the walk route that I usually take when I am chatting with her. I decided to ask her, "Left, Right, or Straight?" at every intersection just to see if I would get a little lost and discover something new. To my disappointment, having never visited my city (I live overseas.), she led me to one of my favorite parks, then to my old apartment, and back home again to my new apartment. It was one of the most mundane walks that I had ever been on, but the IDEA seemed fabulous at the time! Perhaps if you try it, you will have better luck.

Training for When Life Takes Unexpected Turns

The idea for the "random walk" was a spinoff from an idea that I had 10 years ago when my sons were 9 and 12 years old. You see, we had just moved to our foreign assignment when my 17-year marriage started down the path to divorce. My husband had moved out, and I was responsible for our boys in a new city with very little functional knowledge of the language. My greatest fear was that one of my kids would wander away from me in a busy crowd and get lost. I needed a "plan" to teach them how to find their way home. So... it was the first day of summer break, and we had only lived in our home for 5 months. I wanted the assurance that no matter what, if they were close to home, they could find it. Fortunately, we lived in one of the tallest apartment buildings in our neighborhood, so looking up made our place a little easier to spot. Every day for about a month, we played a little game. We would go for a walk in our neighborhood, looking for a vendor selling ice cream. (There were MANY in our area in the summer.) The rule was that we had to choose a random way to go at each intersection (we flipped a coin) and find a NEW ice cream stand. If they could read a NEW ice cream flavor in a foreign language, they could have it. After buying the ice cream, they then had to LEAD me to find their way home. It was actually very beneficial for so many reasons. Physical exercise and fresh air were really good for us at the time to start to heal some of the hurts of our family separation. Playing a "game" together was fun and we enjoyed a lot of laughter. Using their minds to navigate was challenging, and we started to up the ante to see if we could beat the clock to get home faster than it took to find the ice cream. By the end of that one-month training, my heart had peace knowing that my kids could find their way back home from anywhere within a 30-minute walking radius of our place. In later years, when they would go out with friends, I never worried about them getting lost, and they never did lose their way. And fun fact: my kids are FLUENT in ice cream flavors!

When a Chess Game Goes Astray

Linking some of these thoughts to a chess game, I do think it is valuable to play chess in "non-standard" ways. Sometimes, as chess players, we can get locked into patterns that can turn a game into a "yawn" if we continue to answer some moves with the same responses. I lead a small chess club at the school where I teach. It is really enjoyable to play with the kids when they challenge me to a game during their recesses. Although I try to teach them everything I know (by teaching them all my tricks, it helps me improve my game too), kids still INSIST on doing things their own way. Their moves create some very interesting variants on the board that I would never see while playing my rating on this site. If I am not careful, they can surprise me with a mate just because their moves don't follow the patterns I am used to, and I have to pay attention to EVERYTHING on the board... and REALLY that is what I SHOULD be doing in every game anyway. My students train me to slow down and look at each position for all possible moves in order to select the best one. So, as with my random walking, I also create random games where I will let a kid make my next move for me every now and then, just to get in a "tad bit of trouble" in order to see if I can still pull out a win from a losing position.

Future Plans

So what's your endgame? I have stopped planning mine. I have general safety nets in place as far as finances needed for retirement, but at this point, I don't even know what country I would like to settle in during my old age. The door is wide open and I am free to consider all the opportunities around me. Where do I see myself in 5 years? Honestly? NO IDEA. Call me crazy, but I am actually more excited about that kind of lifestyle than when I thought I had it all planned out. :-)

Caveat

One last thought. I don't think it is wise to throw caution to the wind. For quite a long time now, I have been a single mother and I ALWAYS made sure that I had back-ups to the back-up plans in place as far as being able to provide for my sons. What I am trying to say in this post is that sometimes OVERPLANNING your future can be very limiting to exploring adventures you may never have seen coming. Saying "yes" more to things I never thought I would try has helped me to have new experiences to draw from. I have loved learning from people and trying things out of my comfort zone. By gaining these new skills in times when you don't have an emergency, when "life happens," it is a lot easier to just roll with it.

As always, I wish you peace, joy, and love!
Cheers!