The Schedule

I don't know exactly when it happened... Sometime between leaving the sunshine state and getting married, I became a scheduler. I can't tell you exactly why this happened. Just seems that I like it better that way right now. I can schedule anything-- fun, work, payments, spontaneity, whatever. The more scheduling the better.

Fortunately, I'm not surrounded by people who like spontaneity-- in movies it seems to be a fatal character flaw to lack spontaneity. You'd rather have herpes than lack a spontaneous streak. Yet, in life now, it seems that spontaneity has become quietly linked with flakey. Quitting a job, ditching work to take a weekend road trip-- you'll never fill a 401k like that. And that's on my schedule. So is going to Vegas, by the way.

I don't think I was always like this... Sure I was never as free as I'd like to think I was... In my mind, college was nothing but free time and one blank open schedule-- people spoke of spontaneity like it was in short supply-- life itself seemed to be spontaneity then. The reality is that maybe my first semester was like that, and maybe my last semester was like that, but in between were 8 semesters of tests, exams, papers, labs, midterms, and finals... I've forgotten the 95% hard work, and only remember a few parties, bars, and beach trips. I didn't feel the freedom I had then, but I know now that I had it.

I don't know if I'll ever go back to what it was before. If I think about the greatest possible outcome of my career-- to become wildly successful and retire early. I think in my retirement, I'll mostly want to schedule lots of things. Fun things, but scheduled things.